Culture Critique: Centrality of Culture by Hall

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The Centrality of Culture by Hall

Part 1 Substantive aspects

Globalization:

compression of time and space accelerated by new technologies

[Resistance]: ‘closure’ (Woodward) p.211-213

Local and

everyday life:

Subjectivity/Personal

identity:

Part 2 Epistemological aspects

Cultural

Turn: It refers to an approach to contemporary social life, rather than a

dependent variable, provoking a paradigm shift in the humanities and social

sciences in recent years which has com to be known as cultural turn.

Not that

‘everything is culture’ but that every social practice depends on and relates

to meaning: consequently, that culture is one of the constitutive conditions of

existence of that practice, that every social practice has a cultural

dimension.

e.g. Relationships between Politics, Economics

and Culture

Culture is

constitutive of ‘the political’ and ‘the economic’, just as ‘the political’ and

‘the economic’ are, in turn, constitutive of, and set limits for, culture. They

are mutually constitutive of on another - which is another way of saying that

they are articulated with each other.

Mechanism/Means by Culture: construction of meaning/definition

Part 3 Regulation/Governance of/by culture

First, we

need to recognize that regulation/governance is essential and the problem is

which mode can be used to regulate and how and why.

Regulation form/Ways of Power exertion by

Culture:

1.

Normative:

What normative regulation does is to give human

conduct and practice a shape, direction, and purpose; to guide our physical

actions in line with certain purposes, ends and intentions; to make our actions

both intelligible to others, and predicable, regular; to create an orderly

world-in which each action is inscribed by the meanings and values of a shared

culture.

2.Cultural classification:

to define limits between sameness and

difference, between what is sacred and profane, what is ‘acceptable’ and

‘unacceptable’ about our behavior, our dress, our speech, our habits, what

customs and practices are considered ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. (Woodward)

3.Produce new subjectivities:

Regulation through the medium of ‘culture

change’ – through a shift in the ‘regime of meanings’ and by the production of

new subjectivities, within a new set of organizational disciplines.

[Conflict and Resistance]