Cultural studies is a field of theoretically,
politically, and empirically engaged cultural analysis that was initially
developed by British academics in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and has been
subsequently taken up and transformed by scholars from many different
disciplines around the world. Cultural studies is avowedly and even radically
interdisciplinary and can sometimes be seen as antidisciplinary. As cultural
studies scholar Toby Miller has written, "cultural studies is a tendency
across disciplines, rather than a discipline itself. Although most
practitioners of cultural studies are professional academics, Gilbert Rodman
has argued in his 2015 book, Why Cultural Studies?, that the field must be
understood to include some non-academic cultural analysts and practitioners as
well as academic ones. A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is
the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized
people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives.
The field of cultural studies encompasses a range of
theoretical and methodological perspectives and practices. Although distinct
from the disciplines of cultural anthropology andethnic
studies, cultural studies draws upon and has contributed to each of
these disciplines. Cultural studies concentrates upon the political dynamics of
contemporary culture, its historical foundations, defining traits, and
conflicts. CS researchers generally investigate how cultural practices relate
to wider systems of power associated with or operating
through social phenomena, such as ideology, class
structures, national formations, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender and
generation. Cultural studies views cultures not as fixed, bounded, stable and
discrete entities, but rather as constantly interacting and changing sets of
practices and processes.
Cultural studies combines a variety of politically
engaged critical approaches drawn from and including semiotics, Marxism, feminist
theory, ethnography, critical race theory,
poststructuralism, postcolonialism, social theory, political
theory, history, philosophy, literary
theory, media theory, film/video
studies, communication studies, political
economy,translation studies, museum
studies and art
history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies
and historical periods. Thus, cultural studies seeks to understand how meaning
is generated, disseminated, contested, bound up with systems of power and
control, and produced from the social, political and economic spheres within a
particular social formation or conjuncture. Important theories of cultural
hegemony and agency have both influenced and been
developed by the cultural studies movement, as have many recent major
communication theories and agendas, such as those which attempt to explain and
analyze the cultural forces related to processes of globalization.
During the rise of neo-liberalism in
Britain and the US, cultural studies both became a global force/movement, and
attracted the ire of many conservative opponents both within and beyond
universities for a variety of reasons. Some left-wing critics associated
particularly with Marxist forms of political economy also attacked cultural
studies for allegedly overstating the importance of cultural phenomena. While
cultural studies continues to have its detractors, the field has become a kind
of world-wide movement that is to this day associated with a raft of scholarly
associations and programs, annual international conferences, publications,
students and practitioners, from Taiwan to Amsterdam and
fromBangalore to Santa Cruz. Somewhat distinct approaches
to cultural studies have emerged in different national and regional contexts
such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Asia,
Africa and Italy.
Characteristics
In his 1994 book, Introducing Cultural Studies, Ziauddin
Sardar lists the following five main characteristics of
cultural studies:
Ø The
aim of cultural studies is to examine cultural practices and their relation to power.
For example, a study of a subculture (such
as white working class youth in London) would consider their social practices
against those of the dominant culture (in this example, the middle and upper
classes in London who control the political and financial sectors that create
policies affecting the well-being of white working class youth in London).
Ø The
objective of cultural studies includes understanding culture in all its complex
forms and analyzing the social and political context in which culture manifests
itself.
Ø Cultural
studies is a site of both study/analysis and political criticism/action. (For
example, not only would a cultural studies scholar study an object, but s/he
would connect this study to a larger, progressive political project.)
Ø Cultural
studies attempts to expose and reconcile constructed divisions of knowledge that
purport to be grounded in nature.
Ø Cultural
studies has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society and
to a radical line of political action.
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