Showing papers on "Cultural analysis published in 1991"

Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning

Abstract: A rich, witty, and accessible introduction to the anthropology of contemporary cultures,Cultural Complexity emphasizes that culture is organized in terms of states, markets, and movements. Hannerz pays special attention to the interplay between the centralizing agencies of culture, such as schools and media, and the decentering diversity of subcultures, and considers the special role of cities as the centers of cultural growth. Hannerz discusses cultural process in small-scale societies, the concept of subcultures, and the economics and politics of culture. Finally, he presents the twentieth-century globalization of culture as a process of cultural diffusion, polycentralism, and local innovation, focusing on periods of intensive cultural productivity in Vienna, Calcutta, and San Francisco.

Culture tales. A narrative approach to thinking, cross-cultural psychology, and psychotherapy.

Abstract: Narrative (or storytelling) approaches to understanding human action have recently become more popular in several areas of psychology. Treating human thinking as instances of story elaboration offers numerous implications for many domains of psychological theory, research, and practice. For example, several instances of cultural diversity take on a different hue when viewed from a narrative perspective. Finally, several authors (e.g., Bruner, 1986; Howard, 1989; Mair, 1989; McAdams, 1985; Polkinghorne, 1988; Sarbin, 1986) see the development of identity as an issue of life-story construction; psychopathology as instances of life stories gone awry; and psychotherapy as exercises in story repair.

Cultural Knowledge in Organizations: Exploring the Collective Mind

Abstract: Introduction Existing Perspectives on Culture An Alternative Conception of Culture in Organizations A Preview Insights into the Nature of Cultural Knowledge Dictionary Knowledge Cultural Groupings at the Descriptive Level Directory Knowledge Cultural Synergism at the Operational Level Recipe Knowledge Axiomatic Knowledge Culture Formation and Institutionalization Conclusions on the Nature and Concept of Culture in Organizational Settings The Application of Cultural Knowledge in Organizational Settings The Cultural Link between Strategy and Organizational Processes Where Do We Go From Here?

Cultural Leadership in Organizations

Abstract: Although there is general recognition that leadership is important for organizational cultures, the issue of how leadership affects culture has received only scattered attention Existing analyses have tended to focus on how leaders create or change cultures, ignoring the role that leadership plays in maintaining cultures This paper focuses on how cultural leadership that innovates, by either creating or changing organizational cultures, is likely to differ from that which maintains organizational cultures Hypothesized linkages are advanced between nine elements of cultural leadership—drawn from the literature on charisma—and its consequences The predictions made are derived from a synthesis of existing theory and insights gained from descriptions of leadership in the scholarly and popular literatures Both descriptions and theoretical considerations suggest that, while cultural innovation and maintenance leadership differs in some ways, the behaviors of effective cultural leaders do not Cultural lead

The Uses of Laughter in Greek Culture

Abstract: The proposition that man is the only animal capable of laughter is at least as old as Aristotle (Parts of Animals 673a8). In a strictly physical sense, this is probably false; but it is undoubtedly true that as a psychologically expressive and socially potent means of communication, laughter is a distinctively human phenomenon. Any attempt to study sets of cultural attitudes towards laughter, or the particular types of personal conduct which these attitudes shape and influence, must certainly adopt a wider perspective than a narrowly physical definition of laughter will allow. Throughout this paper, which will attempt to establish part of the framework of such a cultural analysis for the Greek world of, broadly speaking, the archaic and classical periods, ‘laughter’ must be taken, by a convenient synecdoche, to encompass the many behavioural and affective patterns which are associated with, or which characteristically give scope for, uses of laughter in the literal sense of the word. My concern, then, is with a whole network of feelings, concepts and actions; and my argument will try to elucidate the practices within which laughter fulfils a recognizable function in Greek societies, as well as the dominant ideas and values which Greek thought brings to bear upon these practices. The results of the enquiry will, I believe, give us some reason to accept a rapprochement between the universalist assumption for which my epigraph from Johnson speaks (and which most grand theorists of laughter appear to have made) and the recognition of cultural specificity in laughter's uses for which many anthropologists would argue, as emphatically asserted, from a Marxizing point of view, in the quotation from Vladimir Propp.

Cultural analysis in historical sociology: The analytic and concrete forms of the autonomy of culture

Abstract: In an effort to clear away confusions regarding the role of cultural analysis in historical explanation, this paper proposes a new approach to the issue of cultural autonomy. The premise is that there are two forms of cultural autonomy, analytic and concrete. Analytic autonomy posits the independent structure of culture-its elements, processes, and reproduction. It is achieved through the theoretical and artificial separation of culture from other social structures, conditions, and action. Concrete autonomy establishes the interconnection of culture with the rest of social life, and is achieved by fleshing out the historically specific formulation of particular cultural structures. In addition to theoretically specifying the two forms of cultural autonomy, I demonstrate analytic and concrete autonomy in practice by examining two works that incorporate culture into the analysis of the same historical event. The rewards of recognizing both analytic and concrete cultural autonomy are twofold. First, cultural reductionism can be countered by establishing that culture is structural. Second and more important, once the independent nature of a cultural form is established, its causal contribution to concrete historical situations can be assessed accurately and integrated into historical explanation.

Twice-born, once conceived: Meaning construction and cultural cognition.

Abstract: Cultural cognition is the product of two different sorts of meaning: (a) the (objective) semiotic organization of cultural texts or models, and (b) the (subjective) processes of meaning construction through which cultural symbols become available to consciousness as “experience.” This article proposes a way to bridge these two kinds of meaning by considering how cultural knowledge is grounded in sensory experience. Several cognitive processes (schematization, synesthesia, secondary intersubjectivity) are proposed for linking the objectively available schemata found in cultural practices and the processes of meaning construction by which individuals appropriate symbols to consciousness. The nature of the relation between public symbols and individual experience is discussed in relation to a number of current issues in post-structuralist culture theory.

Mapping Meanings: A Cultural Critique of Locality Studies:

Abstract: Much of the recent ‘locality studies’ literature suffers from a poorly theorised conception of the cultural dimensions of social and economic change. Despite frequent references to political cultures, regional traditions, and local loyalties, the emphasis of most ‘locality studies’ has been on questions of employment, spatial divisions of labour, and the geography of production, specified in terms of local labour markets. There has been some discussion of the social definition of skill, the meaning of ‘work’, and the intersection of class and gender relations in particular places at specific times. But the significance of local cultures has been much less carefully theorised, leading to an unnecessarily truncated analysis of urban and regional change. The author suggests some alternative theorisations of ‘local culture’, drawing on concepts of cultural politics (from Stuart Hall), structures of feeling (Raymond Williams), cultural capital (Pierre Bourdieu) and local knowledge (Clifford Geertz). These noti...

Contemporary Cultural Theory: An Introduction

Abstract: 1 Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory 2 Literature and Society: From Culturalism to Cultural Materialism 3 Critical Theory: From Ideology Critique to the Sociology of Culture 4 Semiology: From Structuralism to Post-Structuralism 5 The Cultural Politics of Difference 6 Postmodernism and Cultural Theory 7 Cultural Criticism and Cultural Policy

Key relationships of never married, childless older women: a cultural analysis.

Abstract: The key relationships of never married, childless older women, that is, those relationships described as central, compelling, enduring, or significant throughout their lifetimes, were explored in this study. Analysis of qualitative, ethnographically based interviews with 31 women indicated that the key relationships they describe fall into three classes: ties through blood, friendships, and those we label "constructed" ties (kin-like nonkin relations). We report on types of key interpersonal relationships of these women and also examine limits to these key relations, describing some strategies these women have adopted for gaining kin-like relations and the problems inherent in them for the expectation of care in later life. Theoretical work by anthropologist David Schneider concerning American kinship as a cultural system is used to explore dimensions of these relationships.

The cultural context of polio biographies.

Abstract: Clinicians have observed that cultural values and beliefs are important in shaping how patients define and experience their disabilities. However, the link from this clinical observation to an understanding of the cultural dimensions of the post-polio experience has not been made in the literature. We describe the wider cultural contexts that influence the ways individuals interpret and experience post-polio sequelae. The goal is to extend these insights to suggest practical, clinical applications. Data from in-depth multiple interview case studies are used to illustrate how adults present their polio-related experiences within the context of their biographies. The case studies focus on personal interpretations of new functional losses among clinic, support group, and community-based polio survivors in two metropolitan areas.1–5 Anthropology, the cross-cultural and holistic social science, analyzes how the interaction between cultural values and beliefs, social relations, and historical changes affects patterns of daily life and personal experience. The task of anthropologists with interests in rehabilitation and aging is to clarify how the social consequences of disability are constructed in different societies and experienced by individuals over the life span. The issue of “human vulnerability” is an important focus in cross-cultural studies, because it serves to underscore the key values and beliefs that define a particular culture. In American society, the social consequences of vulnerability and dependence, central aspects of living with a disability, challenge our most basic cultural values and beliefs about the role of the individual in society.6 Thus, attention will be given to core cultural values and beliefs, such as the work ethic, that guide all of our lives.

Cultural imperialism: A media effects approach

Abstract: The issue of cultural imperialism has emerged largely from the communication literature involving development and political economy. These orientations ultimately construct formulations concerning cultural heritage and behavior based on analysis of government and/or corporate policy and practice. This paper questions the legitimacy of such inferences and explores the idea of integrating direct‐behavior research with political‐economy perspectives.

Political culture revisited

Abstract: Although culture is one of the most powerful concepts in the social sciences, the discipline of political science was slow to exploit it in spite of its obvious relevance for many basic concerns in the discipline, such as legitimacy, tradition, constitutional norms, and basic national values. However, once the concept was accepted in the 1950s there was a decade of intense interest in cultural analysis during which leading figures in all the social sciences engaged in bold theory-building. For various reasons interest in political culture declined in the 1970s, but recently there has been a revival of work on political culture. A review of the early history may be helpful in ensuring that the revival will proceed on a solid basis.

Communication and cultural interpretation

Abstract: (1991). Communication and cultural interpretation. Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol. 77, No. 3, pp. 336-342.

Dance Narratives and Fantasies of Achievement

Abstract: It is surprising how negligent sociology and cultural studies have been of dance. As a leisure practice, a performance art and as a textual and representational form, dance continues to evade analysis on anything like the scale on which other expressive forms have been considered. And while dance theory and dance criticism are well-developed fields in their own right they do not offer the kind of broader social and cultural analysis which is still so much needed. Dance history tends to be either empirical (and anecdotal) or else collapsed into the biographical details of great dancers. Some of this work is, of course, a useful resource for the sociologist of dance. It is here that we come across the many accounts of the impact of Isadora Duncan’s techniques, and the descriptions of the network of artists, painters and dancers, mostly Russian exiles who came to live in Paris in the early years of the century. The immensely interesting biography of Nijinsky, written by his widow in 1933 (with a postscript in the 1958 edition) provides a fascinating glimpse of dance culture and its links with the other high arts in the early years of the century.1

Process and Content in Behavioral and Cultural Phenomena

Abstract: The phenomena to be explained in terms of scientific principles may be termed the “content” of a science. Behavioral content is organized at the level of individual organisms. Human behavioral repertoires are unique and complex organizations of activity/environment relations. The content of human behavior is accounted for in terms of evolutionary processes occurring at the behavioral level of analysis, during the lifetime of individual organisms. Cultural content originates when behavioral repertoires of two or more individuals form an enduring unit that has the possibility of lasting beyond the lifetime of those individuals. Evolutionary processes occurring at the cultural level of analysis account for cultural practices that extend across generations. The units that come into existence as a result of behavioral and cultural evolutionary processes are the content of behavioral and cultural sciences. Science-based solutions to human problems involve making use of knowledge of behavioral and cultural processes to bring about change in behavioral and cultural content.

Anthropological Other or Burmese Brother?: Studies in Cultural Analysis

Abstract: The studies collected in this volume represent Spiro's contention that despite marked differences, non-Western peoples are "brother," not "other," and that the opportunity to construct a genuine cross-cultural science with commanding universals remains compelling. "Melford E. Spiro" is the author.

Ritual and Dying: A Cultural Analysis of Social Support for Caregivers

Abstract: This study examines the role of social support in the process of caring for someone dying at home. Based on data from in-depth ethnographic interviews with 16 caregivers, it employs a cultural analysis to draw parallels with rituals of transition. Ritual provides a broad context of meanings and routines for securing the doubts and unknowns of individual experience. The way social support is provided plays a key role in the caregiver's transition to bereavement.

Egalitarian community : ethnography and exegesis

Abstract: Undertakes to use one grand theory of cultural anthropology - Grid-Group Analysis, as developed by Mary Douglas - to interpret a comparative study of early Christianity. Grid-Group Analysis addresses the problem of relating the cultural bias of a society to the observable behaviour of its members.

Close viewings : an anthology of new film criticism

Abstract: Based on the assumption that films are complex cultural products and that any critical approach benefits from a precise engagement with textual features, the first part of this book emphasizes formal analysis of narrative structure, and the second part concerns the cultural analysis of films.

Encountering the Postmodern: New Directions in Cultural Anthropology

Abstract: Drawing upon cultural studies literature, this article suggests that the condition of postmodernity poses new challenges to the field of cultural anthropology that go beyond (still significant) problem of ethnographic representation. Exploring the postmodernist project as one that involves a particular approach to cultural phenomena in a multinational global economy, the articles urges anthropologists to reconceive the concept of culture and explore the cultural politics of everyday life in the context of the global restructuring of capitalism.