Showing papers on "Cultural analysis published in 1997"
Book•
02 May 1997
TL;DR: Grossberg's Bringing It All Back Home as mentioned in this paper offers an essential overview of this emerging field by one of its leading practitioners and theorists, bringing together the Gramscian tradition of British cultural studies with the antimodernist philosophical positions of Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari.
Abstract: As one of the founding figures of cultural studies, Lawrence Grossberg was an early participant in the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies' project, one which sought to develop a critical practice adequate to the complexities of contemporary culture The essays in Bringing It All Back Home bring a sense of history, depth, and contestation to the current success of cultural studies while charting Grossberg's intellectual and theoretical developments from his time at Birmingham to the present day Written over a twenty-year period, these essays - which helped introduce British cultural studies to the United States - reflect Grossberg's ongoing effort to find a way of theorising politics and politicising theory The essays collected here recognise both the specificity of cultural studies, by locating it in a range of alternative critical perspectives and practices, and its breadth, by mapping the extent of its diversity By discussing American scholars' initial reception of the field of cultural studies, its relation to communication studies, and its origins in leftist politics, Grossberg grounds the development of cultural studies in the United States in specific historical and theoretical context His criticism of an "easy" identification of this relatively new field with the theories, models, and issues of communications and his challenging of some of cultural studies' current directions and preoccupations indicate what may lie ahead for this dynamic field of study Bringing together the Gramscian tradition of British cultural studies with the antimodernist philosophical positions of Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari, Grossberg articulates an original and important vision of the role of the political intellectual in the contemporary world An invaluable resource for scholars and students of cultural studies, Bringing It All Back Home offers an essential overview of this emerging field by one of its leading practitioners and theorists
351 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that the concept of knowledge, as utilized by public health professionals, is best regarded as cultural belief, as defined in anthropology.
Abstract: In this article we argue that the concept ofknowledge, as utilized bypublic health professionals, is best regarded as cultural belief, as defined in anthropology. The implications of this position are explored, particularly as it relates to the development of a decision-making approach to the understanding and analysis of health care behavior. The methodological challenges posed by the new theoretical perspective that has emerged from the emphasis on decision making is discussed from the perspective of applied research. The role offocused ethnographic studies is examined and contrasted with ethnomedicine and survey approaches. Some main features of focused ethnographic methods are described and illustrated with a case example of acute respiratory infection (ARI) in Gambia. [knowledge and cultural beliefs, decision-making approaches, health behavior, focused ethnographic studies] ur purposes in this article are threefold: (1) to critically examine the twin concepts of cultural knowledge and cultural beliefs with respect to people's behaviors; (2) to place these concepts in a theoretical model of health-seeking behaviors; and (3) to outline an approach to empirical data gathering that can produce systematic data concerning cultural beliefs and knowledge that can be directly useful in health care programs.
193 citations
Book•
31 Mar 1997
TL;DR: The shortcomings of Positivistic methodology for Researching Cultural Psychology are discussed in this article, where the authors present a qualitative methodology for describing the cultural character of psychology and science.
Abstract: Shortcomings of Positivistic Methodology for Researching Cultural Psychology. Principles of Qualitative Methodology for Psychology. Qualitative Methodology for Describing the Cultural Character of Psychology. Qualitative Cultural Psychological Methodology and Science. Sociopolitical Underpinnings of Positivism and Qualitative Cultural Psychological Methodology. References. Index.
118 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that "human development is best suited to understand human development as an adaptive project of individuals and communities" and "that families and communities are trying to accomplish to meet their goals in their cultural world".
Abstract: Ethnography produces believable findings that matter both to those we study and to the social sciences. Ethnography is best suited to understanding human development as an adaptive project of individuals and communities—that is, what families and communities are trying to accomplish to meet their goals in their cultural world, and the cultural pathways that are available for children to achieve those goals.
102 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that while feminist theorizing has largely dislodged the current representations of anorexia nervosa from the clamps of myopic medical discourses devoid of detailed cultural analysis, it has in fact produced similar theoretical dichotomies and blind spots that preclude the successful theorizing of an embodied self and its particular articulation in anoremia nervosa.
98 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a cultural analysis of ethnic conflict is proposed to bridge the tension between the context-specific analyses which figure prominently in the social sciences in recent years and the emphasis on universal human dynamics which characterizes cross-cultural psychology.
Abstract: There is a powerful tension between the context-specific analyses which figure prominently in the social sciences in recent years and the emphasis on universal human dynamics which characterizes cross-cultural psychology. Using the example of ethnic conflict, I seek to bridge the two and suggest that underlying the thick description of single conflicts as the parties understand them is what an earlier generation of psychological anthropologists called “the psychic unity of mankind,” referring to deep structural similarities in all cultures, which make us human (Spiro, 1987). I propose that a cultural analysis of ethnic conflict can effectively build an explanation putting each conflict in a context which highlights what the parties believe is at stake; identifying both the concrete interests and threats to identity crucial to the disputants; linking interests and identities to psychocultural interpretations and the motives underlying them; and proposing that successful settlement of ethnic conflicts means that the parties themselves must actively work toward proposals which address both their competing interests and core identity needs.
76 citations
TL;DR: A culture sensitive pedagogy is being pioneered by the author to meet the current concerns of making schooling more relevant to the needs of learners and teachers and to promote a better overall quality of education in the future.
55 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review the points for and against the concept of cultural lag and discuss the relevance of the concept and theory of cultural lags to socioeconomic policy, including empirical verification.
Abstract: Sets out to review the points for and against the concept of cultural lag. First clarifies the cultural lag concept and theory. Addresses the issue of empirical verification, and discusses the relevance of the concept and theory of cultural lag to socioeconomic policy.
TL;DR: The authors argue that scientific knowledge is a communal belief system with a dubious grip on reality, and they ignore crucial evidence that contradicts this allegation, such as the fact that scientific knowledge does not have a monopoly on reality.
Abstract: Scientific knowledge is a communal belief system with a dubious grip on reality, according to a widely quoted school of sociologists. But they ignore crucial evidence that contradicts this allegation.
TL;DR: The American Counseling Association code of ethics was constructed in a particular cultural context and reflects the assumptions of that context as discussed by the authors. But the need to make underlying philosophical and cultural assumptions explicit in the Preamble to the Code of Ethics is clarified.
Abstract: The American Counseling Association code of ethics was constructed in a particular cultural context and reflects the assumptions of that context. Beginning with a discussion of the purposes served by ethical codes, I review 3 patterns of implicit assumptions: (a) examples of implicit cultural bias, (b) examples of cultural encapsulation, and (c) examples favoring the dominant culture. Positive recommendations for developing more inclusionary ethical guidelines are discussed on the basis of case examples and the consequences of good or bad ethical practice. The need to make underlying philosophical and cultural assumptions explicit in the Preamble to the code of ethics is clarified.
Book•
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: It is argued that the choice or avoidance of this mode is at the heart of the stories’ (re)constitution of a self, an other and a sociocultural world.
Abstract: Conversational narratives provide valuable resources for the discursive construction and invoking of personal and sociocultural identities. As such, their sociolinguistic and cultural analysis constitute a high priority in the agenda of discourse studies. This book contributes to the growing line of discourse-analytic research on the dynamic relations between narrative forms and functions and their immediate and wider communicative contexts. The volume draws on a large corpus of spontaneous, conversational stories recorded in Greece, where everyday stortytelling is a central mode of communication in the community’s interactional contexts and thus a rich site for a meaningful enactment of social stances, roles, and relations. The study brings to the fore the stories’ text-constitutive mechanisms and explores the ways in which they situate the narrated experiences globally, by invoking sociocultural knowledge and expectations, and locally, by making them sequentially and interactionally relevant to the specific conversational contexts. The stories’ micro- and macro-level analysis, richly illustrated with narrative transcripts throughout, leads to the uncovery of a global mode of narrative performance which is based on a closed set of recurrent devices. It is argued that the choice or avoidance of this mode is at the heart of the stories’ (re)constitution of a self, an other and a sociocultural world. The numerous cases of intergenerational narrative communication (adults-children) shed additional light on the performance’s contextualization aspects and contribute to the cross-cultural understanding of the dynamics of oral performances. Besides students and researchers of discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, narrative analysis and Greek studies, this book will also appeal to all those interested in communication and cultural studies.
TL;DR: In this article, a number of suggestions are made for the use of survey data within a Cultural Studies framework, both in terms of reinterpreting existing survey data and designing surveys that allow us to explore contemporary ideologies, the presence of opposition or resistance and the process of hegemony.
Abstract: This article argues that Cultural Studies has tended to ignore questions of research methodology, and that some research methods have been dismissed and abandoned too easily. The article reviews the Cultural Studies critique of quantitative survey methods and, in most cases, endorses them. Nevertheless, while quantitative methods are not without their limitations, they are not irredeemably linked to empiricism. Rather, the quantitative survey may indeed be compatible with a Cultural Studies approach. A number of suggestions are made for the use of survey data within a Cultural Studies framework, both in terms of reinterpreting existing survey data (that may have been designed in terms of conventional empiricist models) and designing surveys that allow us to explore contemporary ideologies, the presence of opposition or resistance and the process of hegemony.
TL;DR: In this article, new ways of critically exploring culture and representation have energized and fragmented cultural anthropology, and the range of perspectives influenced by these new ways has been explored. But, as the authors point out, "the diversity of perspectives has not yet reached its full potential".
Abstract: ——Over the last decade, new ways of critically exploring culture and representation have energized and fragmented cultural anthropology. Can the range of perspectives influenced by these de...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop various propositions that match specific managerial behaviors with cultural work values, which has a wide range of applications in overseas selection decisions and training programs, such as job selection and training.
Abstract: Attempts to transfer Western management theories without considering the host's cultural value system is a prescription for failure. While conceptual frameworks for understanding cultural differences exist, such as the ones developed by Hofstede and Hall, we know little about which managerial practices are relevant in what cultural settings. Adopting the view that the effectiveness of different management behaviors depends on the culture in which they are practiced, this paper develops various propositions that match specific managerial behaviors with cultural work values. The matching of managerial behaviors with cultural values has a wide range of applications in overseas selection decisions and training programs.
Book•
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: Long et al. as discussed by the authors discussed the relationship between social theory and social processes and social inequality in the context of cultural analysis and the history of childhood and the Muppets.
Abstract: List of Contributors. Preface. Introduction: Engaging Sociology and Cultural Studies: Disciplinarity and Social Change: Elizabeth Long (Rice University). Part I: Thinking Through Memory and Tradition: 1. Relativizing Sociology: The Challenge of Cultural Studies: Steven Seidman (State University of New York at Albany). 2. Reading Architecture in the Holocaust Museum: A Method and an Empirical Illustration: Magali Sarfatti Larson (Temple University). 3. Subject Crises and Subject Work: Repositioning DuBois: Jon Cruz (University of California, Santa Barbara). 4. Conserving Cultural Studies: Andres Goodwin and Janet Wolff (University of San Francisco and University of Rochester). Part II: Reframing Popular Forms and Usages: 5. Monsters and Muppets: The History of Childhood and Techniques of Cultural Analysis: Chandra Mukerji (University of California, San Diego). 6. Rewriting the Pleasure/Danger Dialectic: Tricia Rose (New York University). 7. Situating Television in Everyday Life: Reformulating a Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Television Use: Ron Lembo (Amherst College).8. Facing Up to What's Killing Us: Artistic Practice and Grassroots Social Theory: George Lipsitz. Part III: Relating Cultural Processes and Social Inequality: 9. Colliding Moralities Between Black and White Workers: Michele Lamont (Princeton University). 10. The Ideology of Intensive Mothering: A Cultural Analysis of the Best-Selling 'Gurus' of Appropriate Child-rearing: Sharon Hays (University of Virginia). 11. Mexican American Youth and the Politics of Caring: Angela Valenzuela (Rice University). 12. Jazz Tradition, Institutional Formation, and Cultural Practice: The Canon and the Street as Frameworks for Oppositional Black Cultural Politics: Herman Gray (University of California, Santa Cruz). Part IV: Engaging Disciplinarity and Other Politics of Knowledge: 13. The Social Construction of "Social Cunstruction": Notes on "Teddy Bear Patriarchy": Michael Schudson (University of California, San Diego). 14. Critical Cultural Studies as One Power/Knowledge Like, Among, and In Engagement with Others: George Marcus (Rice University). 15. The Men We Left Behind Us, or Reading Our Br(others): Narratives Around and About Feminism from White, Leftwing, Academic Men: Judith Newton and Judith Stacey (University of California at Davis and University of Southern California). 16. Re-Inventing Cultural Studies: Remembering for the Best Version: Richard Johnson (Nottingham Trent University). 17. Whither Cultural Studies?: Ellen Messer-Davidow (University of Minnesota). Index.
Book Chapter•
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how advertising has been framed and also speculate why it has been constructed as the iconographic signifier of multinational capitalism, and therefore in some ethical sense, beyond redemption.
Abstract: In this chapter I shall explore how, and also speculate why, advertising has been framed that is to say set up, incriminated in a number of (broadly marxist) cultural studies critiques and constructed as the iconographic signifier of multinational capitalism, and therefore in some ethical sense, beyond redemption. This kind of political conclusion, which assumes a particular relationship of the advertising image to the economic organisation of society, is frequently based on what appears to be a dissociated critical approach, that is to say textual analysis, often of single ads. As a method it presupposes that the truth not only of the ad itself but also of its history and relationships of the cultural practices involved in its authorship and the diverse ways in which it is read and understood can somehow be revealed by peeling back sufficient layers of visual meaning. Yet paradoxically, this kind of approach often excludes the material processes of production and consumption from the field of knowledge. My intention is to explore these conceptual issues in the context of current debates between cultural theorists and political economists, and finally to reflect a little on the nature of our cultural fascination with the advertising form.
TL;DR: This article explored the thinking and research that has led to a view of literacy as social and cultural practices, which adds to our understanding of literacy by switching the focus to the ways in which individuals, groups, communities and societies put literate practices to work.
Abstract: This article explores the thinking and research that has led to a view of literacy as social and cultural practices. Literacy is described not as an internal cognitive state or a universal set of skills and processes that individuals must learn, but as social and cultural ways of doing things through the use of text. This view adds to our understanding of literacy by switching the focus to the ways in which individuals, groups, communities and societies put literate practices to work. For teachers, this means thinking about the sorts of literacies they are trying to produce through their programmes. This implies studying classrooms and preschools as social and cultural settings where particular practices count as good work – asking which kinds of texts, ways of talking, reading, writing and behaving are preferred and why.
Book•
12 Feb 1997
TL;DR: Based on a three-year ethnographic study of a class on the sociology of Latino/a society, Padilla as discussed by the authors tells the story of how the students navigated academic life in a predominantly white university to construct their own education.
Abstract: Based on a three-year ethnographic study of a class on the sociology of Latino/a society, this book tells the story of how the students navigated academic life in a predominantly white university to construct their own education. Padilla weaves together journal entries, his own experiences in education, cultural analysis, and theory to create a rich narrative.
TL;DR: In this paper, a selective overview and assessment of cultural planning in urban Australia from the perspective of a cultural geographer is presented. But the authors argue that in practice, a narrow, material definition of culture is found in cultural plans, and the relations between cultural practices and place are construed unidimensionally.
Abstract: This paper offers a selective overview and assessment of cultural planning in urban Australia from the perspective of a cultural geographer. It is argued that in theory cultural planning adopts a fluid and broad definition of culture similar to that used by contemporary cultural geographers. In practice, however, a narrow, material definition of culture is found in cultural plans, and the relations between cultural practices and place are construed unidimensionally.
TL;DR: Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India as discussed by the authors is an important contribution in this area, which is divided into two parts: "Pathfinders" and "In Search of a Path".
Abstract: Intellectual traditions grow through a process of critical assessment, and Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India is an important contribution in this area. The autobiographical element makes the essays in this book specially interesting. Works of this kind are rare in the social sciences in India, and the present book provides an excellent model for further research. The book is divided into two parts: 'Pathfinders' and 'In Search of a Path'. In 'Pathfinders' Professor Madan critically examines aspects of the work of several outstanding scholars who span two generations - his teachers, D.P. Mukerji and D.N. Majumdar and others, M.N. Srinivas, Louis Dumont, David Mandebaum and Milton Singer, who have influenced his work in different but important ways. His discussion of the work of these scholars includes a commentary on the major theoretical and methodological perspectives which have illumined the study of society in India during the last fifty years. In this part of the book he dwells on functionalism, structuralism, marxism, cultural analysis and ethnomethodology. 'In Search of a Path' is an account of the author's 'engagement' with anthropology. He describes how his conception of anthropology has changed over time. Professor Madan ends the book with interesting and insightful comments on some of the substantive concerns of Indian sociology, such as the social construction of ethnicity and intellectual responses to the modern West. He seeks understanding through cultural comparison throughout these essays in the book. Professor T.N. Madan is a senior member of the faculty at the Institute of Economic Growth (University of Delhi). He is Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and Docteur Honoris Causa of the University of Paris X (Nanterre). His recent publications include Non-renunciation: Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture (OUP, 1987), Family and Kinship: A study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir, second enlarged edition (OUP, 1989) and as editor Religion in India (OUP, 1991).
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed teaching and learning strategies for using the documented materials in the primary, junior secondary, and senior secondary school levels of education in Ghana, using a discipline-based art education (D.B.A.E) approach which integrates studio practice (art-making) with the historical, aesthetics, and critical domains of the arts.
Abstract: While the cultural policy adopted by Ghana on her attainment of political independence aims to offer the Ghanaian people opportunities to revive, preserve, and develop their indigenous culture, not much has been done in terms of documenting the Ghanaian cultural arts for both cultural record and educational purposes. This is because most of the experts of indigenous Ghanaian cultural matters are illiterates. These cultural experts depend mainly on an oral tradition for transmitting information about their culture. Communal beliefs and values, and ideas about cultural behaviours and actions, cultural symbols and images are passed on to the younger generations through stories, proverbs, and folk songs, among others. The people of Ghana have a characteristic of thinking about the world in which they live in symbolic terms. Thus, they use a wide range of symbol systems in accordance with various aspects of their social and cultural life, including the practice of their arts. Indeed, Ghanaian artistic expression is mostly symbolically oriented, serving to represent communal beliefs that are deeply rooted in historical, philosophical, social, religious, economic, and political values which form the basis of all major areas of Ghanaian cultural knowledge that gave birth to their arts. The national call for cultural revival, as well as a new urge for cultural identity among Ghanaians, today, has resulted in an urgent need for a research to document various aspects of the Ghanaian culture for use as educational and reference material to augment the oral tradition which is becoming increasingly inadequate in meeting the educational needs of the people. This study identifies and interprets the meanings of some symbolic key expressions as they are found in particular examples of the indigenous cultural arts of Ghana, namely: the visual, performing, and verbal art forms. The documentation includes the social and cultural significance (relevance) and aesthetic attributions of these symbolic artistic expressions and art forms to the people of Ghana. The documentation is done in a way that makes it applicable for arts education in Ghanaian schools. The Ghanaian cultural arts have been incorporated as an interdisciplinary study under a curriculum enrichment programme--a supporting content of the general education programme--rendering instruction in them to become an ancillary activity. This disparity between the goals of general education and arts education has resulted in the latter being relegated to the peripheries of the general school curriculum. The study, therefore proposes teaching and learning strategies for using the documented materials in the Primary, Junior Secondary, and Senior Secondary School levels of education in Ghana, using a discipline-based art education (D.B.A.E.) approach which integrates studio practice (art-making) with the historical, aesthetics, and critical domains of the arts. The resulting body of literature on the Ghanaian arts together with the suggested approaches to teaching and learning result in an arts education programme that is appropriate for Ghanaian schools. By studying the arts in relation to their own cultural context students will understand the arts they have been living with as part of their lifestyle. Their artistic skills and practices, imaginations, knowledge, and judgement will be grounded in their own cultural assumptions. In this way, students will understand and acquire the relevant literacy for effective participation in, and appreciation of their own culture.
31 Jan 1997
TL;DR: In this article, Theall examines how Joyce conceived of the artist as an engineer and the artist's works as constructions, and reveals the importance of Joyce's understanding of the direction of a developing technoculture.
Abstract: James Joyce's Techno-Poetics is on the cutting edge of an original and exciting new trend in Joycean studies, as it combines the study of literature, technology, and communication to reveal James Joyce as 'a key figure in the history of cyberculture.' Donald Theall examines for the first time how Joyce conceived of the artist as an engineer and the artist's works as constructions, and reveals the importance of Joyce's understanding of the direction of a developing technoculture. Theall explores the interrelationships between the machinic and the processes of encoding, decoding, reading, writing, and interpreting in Joyce's self-reflexive treatment of the book in Finnegans Wake. By situating this project in relation to memory and cultural production, Theall argues that Joyce's radical paramodern poetic practice has important implications for a wide variety of subsequent cultural and theoretical movements: dramatism, poststructuralism, semiology, and hypertextuality. Theall places Joyce in the context of other modern thinkers, such as Benjamin and Bataille, and draws a direct line of influence from Joyce to Marshall McLuhan and Neuromancer author William Gibson. This is a remarkable and innovative work that makes an important contribution not only to Joycean studies, but to literary theory, modernism, cultural analysis, the history of ideas, and the relationship between literature, science, and technology.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe an approach that integrates cultural analysis (content) and ''good conversation'' (process) in developing greater awareness of cultural diversity among students and managers.
Abstract: This article describes an approach that integrates cultural analysis (content) and `good conversation' (process) in developing greater awareness of cultural diversity among students and managers. The article draws from the authors' experience teaching students and managers in the United States and Latin America. The objective of this approach is to develop a multicultural learning organization in workshops and courses, to benefit from the cultural diversity of contemporary organizations. Building on our previous work, we present a framework for the design of courses or workshops.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined critically the provision of state bilingual education to the Huaorani, a small group of Amazonian hunter-gatherers, and argued that current thinking fails to recognise that culture is acquired and transmitted within communities of practice.