CULTURE REPRESENTATION IDENTITY

Teorias e Metodologias em Estudos Culturais setembro 2012 * Gillian Moreira

CULTURE & CULTURAL STUDIES

a whole process
[Williams] shifted the whole ground of debate from a literary-moral to an anthropological definition of culture. But it defined the latter now as the whole process by means of which meanings and definitions are socially constructed and historically transformed, with literature and art as only one, specially privileged, kind of social communication.
Stuart Hall in Culture, Media, Language. p. 19

Williams theory of culture

It is in this context that the theory of culture is defined as the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life. Culture is not a practice; nor is it simply the descriptive sum of the mores and folkways of societies as it tended to become in certain kinds of anthropology. It is threaded through all social practices and is the sum of their interrelationship.
Hall, in Storey, John. What is Cultural Studies? 1997, p 34

cultural studies
cultural studies can be defined as
the distinctive approach to culture that results when we stop thinking about culture as particular valued texts and think about it as a broader process in which each person has an equal right to be heard, and each persons voice and reflections about culture are valuable; that space of equality.
Nick Couldry, 2000, p. 2

production-in-use
Culture in cultural studies is defined politically rather than aesthetically Culture is understood as the texts and practices of everyday life Popular culture is central to the project of cultural studies Culture is the terrain of conflict and constestation Culture is production in use
John Storey, 1996

popular culture is not consumption, it is culture the active process of generating and circulating meanings and pleasures within a social system culture is a living, active process: it can be developed only from within, it cannot be imposed from without or above. Popular culture is made by the people, not produced by the culture industry. All the culture industries can do is produce a repertoire of texts or cultural resources for the various formations of the people to use or reject in the ongoing process of producing their popular culture. Fiske, 1989

Ultimately, the study of popular culture is concerned with how relations of power are structured through the practices and texts which make up the bulk of peoples daily activity.

REPRESENTATION AND SHARED MEANINGS

Representation is the production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between concepts and language which enables us to refer to either the real world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events.
Hall, 1997: 17

Language is understood to refer, not only to written and spoken language, but to visual images, body language, music, fashion codes, cultural representations are embedded in sounds, objects, images in books, popular magazines, television programmes for example.

Half truth: behind every status symbol and luxury badge is a good product Full truth: Good is the enemy of great Truth in Engineering

"Este Natal, oferea o que Nacional" a assinatura do Licor Beiro para o Natal, marca que continua a honrar a herana de irreverncia e humor.

identity as cultural representation

Cultural identity socially and discursively constructed Identity does not exist outside of cultural representations and acculturalization the process by which we become self-aware, knowledgeable individuals, skilled in the ways of culture.
Barker, 1999

Process of acculturalization

centred on the family, peer groups, education, media, work organizations, ...

Identity not something to be discovered inside ourselves

rather, it is a process of becoming It is not unique but multiple, reflecting (the diversification of) social relations and contexts and sites of interaction

Hybrid Identities

arise out of diversified social relationships and complex contexts and sites of interaction, of increasing social mobility, of global resources

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES TO IMAGINED WORLDS

imagined communities
"In an anthropological spirit, then, I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community - - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.
Anderson, 1991: 5

New forms of governance?

Europeanisation should be regarded as a process of multi-level governance incorporating existing cultural systems and collective identities of both national and subnational levels.
Moreno, 2002

A borderless world
Some theorists on globalization claim that we live now in a borderless world, in which the nation-state has become a fiction and where politicians have lost all effective power
Keniche Ohmae, 1995, in Giddens, 1998: 29

ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financescapes, mediascapes, ideoscapes

These landscapes are the building blocks of what (extending Benedict Anderson) I would like to call imagined worlds, that is, the multiple worlds which are constituted by the historically situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe.
Appadurai, 1996

We are functioning in a world fundamentally characterized by objects in motion. These objects include ideas and ideologies, people and goods, images and messages, technologies and techniques. This is a world of flows.
Appadurai, 2001, in Pennycook, 2007

Globalization - "the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole"
Robertson, 1992: 8

In thought and action, it [globalization] makes the world a single place. What it means to live in this place, and how it must be ordered, become universal questions. These questions receive different answers from individuals and societies that define their position in relation to both a system of societies and the shared properties of humankind from very different perspectives. The confrontation of their world views means that globalization involves comparative interaction of different forms of life.
Robertson, 1992: 27

A planetary consciousness
If we are to cope with the problems that face us today and in coming years, the consciousness of todays women and men must rise from the ego- and nationcentered dimension to a global and planet-centered one.
Laszlo, 2005

A planetary consciousness (cont)

Having a consciousness that is in tune with our times means evolving it to the dimension where we can understand as well as feel our new, more embracing relations with each other and with nature. It calls for a planetary consciousness.
Laszlo, 2005

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says. She said the so-called "multikulti" concept where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

17th October 2010

MUNICH, Germany Prime Minister David Cameron, in a speech attended by world leaders, on Saturday criticized his countrys longstanding policy of multiculturalism, saying it was an outright failure and partly to blame for fostering Islamist extremism. He said the U.K. needs a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to extremism. February 2011

Italian Prime Minister and French President Nicolas Sarkozy ... said the Schengen treaty, which removes many European Union border controls, should be modified temporarily to allow countries to deal with exceptional circumstances. The flow of migrants to southern Italy had raised tensions between the two countries in the lead up to this summit. We want Schengen to live, but for Schengen to live it must be reformed, President Sarkozy told reporters. April 2011

From individualization to zombie categories U. Beck

National categories of thought make the thought of Europe impossible. The national point of view sees two ways and two ways only of reading contemporary European politics and integration. Within this framework of thought, whatever Europe gains, the individual nations lose. And this is true whether one is for a given option or against it. Caught up in the false alternatives of the national gaze, we are given the choice between no Europe or no Europe. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/15/p olitics.eu

the imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people
Hobsbawn (1990)

Football - role model for a new world order

Der Spiegel (2006)

Would you pass the cricket test?

References and further reading

Benedict Anderson (1983/91) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Chris Barker (1999) Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. Buckingham: Open University Press. Ulrich Beck (2008) Nation-state politics can only fail the problems of the modern world in The Guardian, 15th January 2008 Nick Couldry (2000). Inside Culture Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies. London: Sage Publications John Fiske (1989) Understanding Popular Culture. Unwin Hyman: Boston. Anthony Giddens (1998). The Third Way. Cambridge: Polity Press. Stuart Hall (ed) (1997) Representation Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications. S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P Willis, (eds) (1980). Culture, Media, Language. London: Unwin Hyman. (Part I) E.J.Hobsbawm (1990). Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: CUP.

Ervin Laszlo (2005). Planetary Consciousness: our next evolutionary step. Journal of Conscious Evolution, 2005 cejournal.org. http://www.cejournal.org/GRD/Laszlo.pdf.

Hugh Mackay (1997). Consumption and Everyday Life. London: Sage Publications. R. Robertson (1996). Globalization: social theory and global Culture. London: Sage Publications. Anthony Smith (1995). Nations and Nationalisms in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press. John Storey,(1996) Cultural Studies & The Study of Popular Culture Theories and Methods. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. (Chapter 1) John Storey (ed) (1997) What is Cultural Studies? A Reader. London: Arnold. (Chapters 1 & 2) John Storey (2003) Inventing Popular Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.