Culture Critique: Centrality of Culture by Hall

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]