CEA Reading: Sewell - Concepts of culture

culture as a category of social life

Culture as: learned behaviour. a meaning machine. creativity/agency. a system of symbols and meanings. a practice

culture as distinct worlds of meaning

Cultures are: contradictory loosely integrated. contested. subject to constant change.

culture as beliefs & practices

a concrete and bounded world of beliefs and practices. Culture in this sense is commonly assumed to belong to or to be isomorphic with a "society" or with some clearly identifiable subsocietal group.

two aspects of culture

a practice a system of symbols the two are complementary and necessary. one cannot exist without the other. We cannot engage in a cultural practice without the use of cultural symbols and cultural symbols would lost their meanings if they were not located within a cultural practice.

'culture' (now)

anthropology is backing away from culture as keyword and symbol. They declare it "essentialist." Post-structuralism leads to lack of faith in objectivity.

the two concepts of culture

culture = theoretical category culture = concrete beliefs & practices Different cultural theorists refer to different definitions

'culture' (1970's)

domain of anthropologists. Few literary studies. beginning to apply sociological methods of study to the production & marketing of cultural artifacts.

'culture' (1980's- 1990's)

expansion on study of culture. Studies the place of meaning in social life.

Problem with studying "culture" as a meaning machine

focuses only on a certain range of meanings, produced in a certain range of institutional locations. Gives the idea that meaning is only important in the sphere of this kind of "culture"" - not in economic, political, ect. spheres. Politics & economics affect culture culture cannot be separated from them.

culture as theoretical category

must be abstracted out from the complex reality of human existence.

coherence of culture is shaped by

power and semiotic meanings