Cultural turn

The cultural turn is a movement beginning in the early 1970s among scholars in the humanities and social sciences to make culture the focus of contemporary debates; it also describes a shift in emphasis toward meaning and away from a positivist epistemology. The cultural turn is described in 2005 by Lynette Spillman and Mark D. Jacobs as "one of the most influential trends in the humanities and social sciences in the last generation."^[1] A prominent historiographer argues that the cultural turn involved a "wide array of new theoretical impulses coming from fields formerly peripheral to the social sciences,"^[2] especially post-structuralism, cultural studies, literary criticism, and various forms of linguistic analysis, which emphasized "the causal and socially constitutive role of cultural processes and systems of signification."^[2]

Background

The cultural turn in the late 20th century is interpreted as referring to either a substantive shift in society or an analytical shift in academia. The former argues that culture plays a more significant role in advanced societies, which fits with the notion of post-modernity as a historical era in which people "emphasizes the importance of art and culture for education, moral growth, and social criticism and change".^[3] The latter is movement within academia to place the concept of culture, and the related notions of meaning, cognition, affect, and symbols at the center of methodological and theoretical focus. Some argue that the analytical shift is endogenous to the substantive shift.^[3]

Culture can be defined as "the social process whereby people communicate meanings, make sense of their world, construct their identities, and define their beliefs and values".^[3] Or, for Georg Simmel, culture refers to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history". Thus culture can be interpreted on a spectrum from purely individualistic solipsism to objective forms of social organization and interaction.

History

Analytical shift

One of the earliest works in which the term "cultural turn" showed up was Jeffrey C. Alexander's chapter "The New Theoretical Movement" in Neil Smelser's Handbook of Sociology (1988).^[4] According to Alexander, the origins of the cultural turn should be traced to the nineteenth-century debate between idealism and materialism, i.e. Hegel and Marx, respectively.^[5] Prior to the labeling of the movement, in the 1970s, "foundational works underlying and facilitating the turn to cultural forms of analysis" emerged: Hayden White's Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973), Clifford Geertz's The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (1973), Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1977), and Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977).^[6]

While the earlier twentieth century experienced a linguistic turn, mostly brought about by the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ferdinand de Saussure, the cultural turn of the late twentieth century absorbed those criticisms and built on them.

The cultural turn has helped cultural studies to gain more respect as an academic discipline. With the shift away from high arts the discipline has increased its perceived importance and influence on other disciplines.

British historian Heather Jones argues that the historiography of the First World War has been reinvigorated by the cultural turn in recent years. Scholars have raised entirely new questions regarding military occupation, radicalisation of politics, race, and the male body.^[7]

Substantive shift

The cultural turn as an historical era that breaks substantively with the past is only tangentially related to cultural turn as analytical shift. Proponents of the former argue that:

“The very sphere of culture itself has expanded, becoming coterminous with market society in such a way that the cultural is no longer limited to its earlier, traditional or experimental forms, but it is consumed throughout daily life itself, in shopping, in professional activities, in the various often televisual forms of leisure, in production for the market and in the consumption of those market products, indeed in the most secret folds and corners of the quotidian. Social space is now completely saturated with the image of culture.”
— Fredric Jameson, 1998, p. 111^[8]

Advertising, amateur photography, yellow journalism and an assortment of other forms of media arose after the politically charged 1960s. Moreover, this media was multicultural, and attempted to target all races, ethnicities and age groups, as opposed to more exclusive media prior to the 1960s. This "new media" of a postmodern America brought about an expansion and differentiation of culture, which has only been rapidly expanded by the Internet and social media.

In rural studies

In recent years, there has been something of a resurgence in rural studies, which has become somewhat more mainstream than previously in the academic space of social science.^[9] Increasing numbers of people have taken on important dualistic questions of society/space, nature/culture structure/agency and self/other from the perspective of rural studies. However, it is the 'cultural turn' in wider social science which has lent both respectability and excitement to the nexus with rurality, particularly with new foci on landscape, otherness and the spatiality of nature. With a conceptual fascination with difference, and a methodological fascination with ethnography, cultural studies have provided a significant palimpsestuous overlay onto existing landscapes of knowledge.^[10]

References

^ Jacobs, Mark; Spillman, Lynette (2005). "Cultural sociology at the crossroads of the discipline". Poetics. 33 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2005.01.001.
^ ^a ^b Steinmetz, G (1999). State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 1–2.
^ ^a ^b ^c Steven, Best (2007). Ritzer, George (ed.). "Culture Turn". Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. doi:10.1111/b.9781405124331.2007.x. hdl:10138/224218. ISBN 9781405124331. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
^ Alexander, Jeffrey (1988). "The New Theoretical Movement". In Smelser, N. J. (ed.). Handbook of Sociology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. pp. 77–101.
^ Eyerman, Ron (2004). "Jeffrey Alexander and the Cultural Turn in Social Theory". Thesis Eleven|No. 79. pp. 25–30.
^ Bonnell, V. E.; Hunt, L. (1999). Beyond the Cultural Turn. Berkeley: University of California Press.
^ Heather Jones, "As the centenary approaches: the regeneration of First World War historiography." Historical Journal (2013) 56#3 pp: 857-878
^ Jameson, Fredric (1998). The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998. Brooklyn: Verso.
^ Woods, M (2005). Rural geography. p. 24.
^ Cloke, P (October 1998). "Country backwater to virtual village? Rural studies and 'the cultural turn'". Journal of Rural Studies. 13 (4): 367–375. doi:10.1016/s0743-0167(97)00053-3.

Finlay Macknay, The way of the lad. 2011

[Cultural_sociology_at_the_crossroads_of_the_discipline-1] Jacobs, Mark; Spillman, Lynette (2005). "Cultural sociology at the crossroads of the discipline". Poetics. 33 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2005.01.001.

[steinmetz1-2] Steinmetz, G (1999). State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 1–2.

[sociologyencyclopedia2007-3] Steven, Best (2007). Ritzer, George (ed.). "Culture Turn". Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. doi:10.1111/b.9781405124331.2007.x. hdl:10138/224218. ISBN 9781405124331. Retrieved 30 July 2014.

[4] Alexander, Jeffrey (1988). "The New Theoretical Movement". In Smelser, N. J. (ed.). Handbook of Sociology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. pp. 77–101.

[5] Eyerman, Ron (2004). "Jeffrey Alexander and the Cultural Turn in Social Theory". Thesis Eleven|No. 79. pp. 25–30.

[6] Bonnell, V. E.; Hunt, L. (1999). Beyond the Cultural Turn. Berkeley: University of California Press.

[7] Heather Jones, "As the centenary approaches: the regeneration of First World War historiography." Historical Journal (2013) 56#3 pp: 857-878

[8] Jameson, Fredric (1998). The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998. Brooklyn: Verso.

[9] Woods, M (2005). Rural geography. p. 24.

[10] Cloke, P (October 1998). "Country backwater to virtual village? Rural studies and 'the cultural turn'". Journal of Rural Studies. 13 (4): 367–375. doi:10.1016/s0743-0167(97)00053-3.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

v t e Culture
Outline
Sciences	Cultural anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural geography Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory
Subfields	Bioculture Cross-cultural studies Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural leadership Cross-cultural psychiatry Cross-cultural psychology Cultural analytics Cultural economics Cultural entomology Cultural history Cultural mapping Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Cultural values Culturomics Intercultural learning Intercultural relations Internet culture Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Postcritique Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Transcultural nursing
Types	Constructed culture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Microculture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Resistance through culture Subculture Alternative culture Fandom Far-right subcultures Youth subculture list Super culture Vernacular culture Culture by location
Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appreciation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural behavior Cultural bias Cultural capital Cross-cultural Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural emphasis Cultural framework Cultural heritage Destroyed Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Cultureme Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Relational mobility Safety culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation Visual culture
Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cross cultural sensitivity Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural contracts Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural racism Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural subsidy Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Deculturalization Dominator culture Interculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Biculturalism Multiracial democracy Pluriculturalism Polyculturalism Transculturism
Religions	Buddhism Christianity Catholicism Cultural Christians Protestantism Role of Christianity in civilization Eastern Orthodoxy Mormonism Cultural Hindus Islam Cultural Muslims Judaism Sikhism
Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Cannabis culture Circuit of culture Civilization Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural center Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural determinism Cultural diversity Cultural evolutionism Cultural homogenization Cultural institution Cultural jet lag Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural mulatto Cultural probe Cultural relativism Culture speculation Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural translation Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture and menstruation Culture and positive psychology Culture and social cognition Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Culturgen Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Death and culture Disability culture Deaf culture Drinking culture Drug culture Eastern culture Emotions and culture Intercultural communication Intercultural competence Languaculture Living things in culture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture Western culture Youth culture
Category Commons WikiProject Changes

v t e Social sciences
Outline History Index
Primary	Anthropology archaeology cultural social physical Economics microeconomics macroeconomics econometrics mathematical Geography physical human technical integrated History cultural auxiliary sciences economic human military political social Law jurisprudence legal history legal systems public law private law Linguistics semiotics Political science international relations comparative philosophy public policy public administration Psychology abnormal cognitive developmental personality social Sociology criminology demography internet rural urban
Interdisciplinary	Administration business public Anthrozoology Area studies Business studies Cognitive science Communication studies Community studies Criminology Cultural studies Development studies Education Environmental social science studies Food studies Gender studies Global studies Historical sociology History of technology Human ecology Information science International studies Linguistics Management Media studies Philosophies science economics history psychology social science Planning land use regional urban Political ecology Political economy Political sociology Public health Regional science Science and technology studies Science studies historical Quantum social science Social work Vegan studies
List	List of social science journals
Other categorizations	Behavioral sciences Geisteswissenschaft Human science Humanities
Category Commons Society portal Wikiversity