Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The aim of this chapter is to reflect upon the concept-or more prop
erly the concepts-of culture in contemporary academic discourse.
Trying to clarify what we mean by culture seems both imperative
and impossible at a moment like the present, when the study of cul
ture is burgeoning in virtually all fields of the human sciences. Al
though I glance at the varying uses of "culture" in a number of disci
plines, my reflection is based above all on the extensive debates that
'., have occurred in anthropology over the past two decades-debates
in which some have questioned the very utility of the concept.' I feel
strongly that it remains as useful, indeed essential, as ever. But given
the cacophony of contemporary discourse about culture, I also be
lieve that the concept needs some reworking and clarification.s,
The current volatility of the concept of culture sharply contrasts
with the situation in the early 1970s, when I first got interested in a
cultural approach to social history. At that time it was clear that
if you wanted to learn about culture, you turned to the anthropol
ogists. And while they by no means spoke in a single voice, they
shared a Widespread consensus both about the meaning of culture
and about its centrality to the anthropological enterprise. I began
borrowing the methods and insights of cultural anthropology as a
Ji means of learning more about nineteenth-century French workers.
Cultural analysis, I hoped, would enable me to understand the
If meaning of workers' practices that I had been unable toget at by us
ing quantitative and positivist methods-my standard tool kit as a
'I'
'~i
practitioner of what was then called "the new social history." 2 I ex
perienced the encounter with cultural anthropology as a tum from
a hardheaded, utilitarian, and empiricist materialism-which had
both liberal and marxisant faces-to a wider appreciation of the
35
]6 Willialll H 5cl/'('II, [r. Tile Conceptts) «[Culmre 37
range of human possibilities, both in the past and in the present. tory" of the 1960s and 1970S was succeeded by an equally self
Convinced that there was more to life than the relentless pursuit of confident "new cultural history" in the 1980s/
wealth, status, and power, I felt that cultural anthropology could In the late 19708, an emerging "sociology of culture" began by
show us how to get ill that "more."} applying standard sociological methods to studies of the production
Anthropology at the time had a virtual monopoly on the concept and marketing of cultural artifacts-music, art, drama, and litera
of culture. In political science and sociology, culture was associated ture. By the late 1980s, the work of cultural sociologists had broken
with the by then utterly sclerotic Parsonian theoretical synthesis. The out of the study of culture-producing institutions and moved toward
embryonic "cultural studies" movement was still confined to a single studying the place of meaning in social life more generally, Femi
research center in Birmingham. And literary studies were still fixated nism, which in the 1970S was concerned above all to document
on canonical literary texts-s-nlthough the methods of studying them women's experiences, has increasingly turned to analyzing the dis
were being revolutionized by the importation of "french" struc cursive production of gender difference. Since the mid-rosos the
turnlist and poststructuralist theory. Moreover, the mid-rooos to the new quasi-discipline of cultural studies has grown explosively in
mid-1970S marked the glory years uf American cultural anthropol a variety of different academic niches-for example, in programs or
ogy, which may be said to have reached its apotheosis with the pub departments of film studies, literature, performance studies, or com
lication of Clifford Ceertzs phenomenally influentialllltcrp,·etl7tiOlI of munications. In political science, which is well known for its pro
Cult urcs in 197J. 1 Not only did anthropology have no serious rivals pensity to chase headlines, interest in cultural questions has been
in the study of culture, but the creativity and prestige of cultural an revived by the recent prominence of religious fundamentalism, na
thropology were at a very high point. tionalism, and ethnicity, which look like the most potent sources of
During the 1980s and 1990s, the intellectual ecology of the study political conflict in the contemporary world. This frenetic rush to the
of culture has been transformed by a vast expansion of work on cul study of culture has everywhere been bathed, to a greater or lesser
ture-indeed, a kind of academic culture mania has set in. The new extent, in the pervasive transdisciplinary influence of the French
interest in culture has swept over a wide range of academic disci poststructuralist trinity of Lacan. Derrida, and Foucault.
plines and specialties. The history of this advance differs in timing It is paradoxical that as discourse about culture becomes ever
~
and con tent in each field, but the cumulative effects are undeniable. more pervasive and multifarious, anthropology, the discipline that
In literary studies, which were already being transformed by French invented the concept-or at least shaped it into something like its
theory in the 1970s, the 1980s marked a turn to a vastly wider range present form-is somewhat ambivalently backing away from its
of texts, quasi-texts, paratexts, and text analogs. If, as Derrida de long-standing identification with culture as its keyword and central
clared, nothing is extra textual ("il n'y a pas de hors-texte"), literary symbol. For the past decade and a half, anthropology has been rent
critics could direct their theory-driven gaze upon semiotic products by a particularly severe identity crisis, which has been manifested in
of all kinds-legal documents, political tracts, soap operas, histo anxiety about the discipline's epistemology, rhetoric, methodological
ries, talk shows, popular romances-and seek out their intertex procedures, and political implications," The reasons for the crisis are
tualities." Consequently, as such "new historicist" critics as Stephen many-liberal and radical guilt about anthropology's association
Greenblatt and Louis Montrose recognize, literary study is increas with Euro-American colonialism, the disappearance of the suppos
inglv becoming the study of cultures." In history the ea rly and rather edly "untouched" or "primitive" peoples who were the favored sub
self-conscious bt)!T\1\ving from anthropology has been followed by a jects for classic ethnographies, the rise of "native" ethnographers
theoretically heterogeneous rush to the study of culture, one mad who contest the right of European and American scholars to tell the
ded as much on literary studies or the work of Michel Foucault ClS on "truth" about their people, and the general loss of confidence in the
anthropology. As a consequence, the self-confident "new social his- possibility of objectivity that has attended poststructuralism and
}8 Willinll1 H Sewell, Jr. Tile Concepits) of Culture 39
postmodernism. As anthropology's most central and distinctive con WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CULTURE?
cept, "culture" has become a suspect term among critical anthropol
ogists-who cla im that both in academia and in public discourse, Writing in 198], Raymond Williams declared that "culture is one of
talk about culture tends to essentialize, exoticize, and stereotype the two or three most complicated words in the English language."12
those whose ways of life are being described and to naturalize their Its complexity has surely not decreased since then. I have neither the
differences from white middle-class Euro-Americans. If Geertz's competence nor the inclination to trace out the full range of mean
phrase "The Interpretation of Cultures" was the watchword of an ings of "culture" in contemporary academic discourse. But some at
thropology in the 1970s, Lila Abu-Lughods "Writing against Cul tempt to sort out the different usages of the word seems essential,
ture" more nearly sums up the mood of the late 1980s and the 1990S.9 and it must begin by distinguishing two fundamentally different
As [ohn Brightman points out in his superb commentary on the meanings of the term.
recent disputes about culture in anthropology, the anthropological In one meaning, culture is a theoretically defined category or as
critics of the 1980s and 1990S have exhibited Widespread "lexical pect of social life that must be abstracted out from the complex real
avoidance behavior," either placing the term "culture" in quotation ity of human existence. Culture in this sense is always contrasted to
marks when it is used, refusing to use "culture" as a noun while con some other equally abstract aspect or category of social life that is not
tinuing to use it as an adjective (as in "cultural anthropology"), or re culture, such as economy, politics, or biology. To designate some
placing it with alternative lexerues such as "habitus," "hegemony," thing as culture or as cultural is to claim it for a particular academic
or "discourse." HI This emerging anthropological tabu seems to me discipline or subdiScipline-for example, anthropology..or cultural
mistaken on two counts. First, it is based on the implicit assumption sociology-or for a particular style or styles of analysis-for ex
that anthropology "owns" the lexeme and that it is therefore respon ample, structuralism, ethno-science, componential analysis, decon
sible for any abuses that might be pcrpet ratcd by others employing struction, or hermeneutics. Culture in this sense-as an abstract ana
the term. Second, it assumes that anthropological abstention from lytical category-only takes the singular. Whenever we speak of
the use of the lexerne will magically abolish such abuses. The truth is "cultures," we have moved to the second fundamental meaning.
that the term has escaped all possibility of control by anthropolo In that second meaning, culture stands for a concrete and
gists: whatever lexical practices the anthropologists may adopt, talk bounded world of beliefs and practices. Culture in this sense is com
about culture will continue to thrive-in both abusive and accept monly assumed to belong to or to be isomorphic with a "society" or
able ways-in a wide range of other academic disciplines and in or with some dearly identifiable subsocietal group. We may speak of
dinary language as well. Moreover, as Brightman again points out, "American culture" or "Samoan culture," or of "middle-class cul
even the critical anthropologists find it impossible to give up the COII ture" or "ghetto culture."13 The contrast in this usage is not between
"culture is a deeply compromised concept that I cannot yet do with tween American, Samoan, French, and Bororo cultures, or between
out" seems emblematic of the unresolved ambivalence: the concept middle-class and upper-class cultures, or between ghetto and main
is compromised and he hopes in the future to do without it, but be stream cultures.
cause it continues to perform valuable intellectual work the fateful This distinction between culture as theoretical category and cul
act of renunciation is indefinitely deferred."! If, as I believe, Clifford ture as concrete and bounded body of beliefs and practices is, as far
is right that we G\t1IHlt do without a concept of culture, I think we as I can discern, seldom made. Yet it seems to me crucia I for thinking
should try to shape it into one we can work with. We need to mod clearly about cultural theory. It should be clear, for example, that
ify, rearticulato, and revivify the concept, retaining and reshaping Ruth Benedict's concept of cultures as sharply distinct and highly
what is useful and discarding what is not. integrated refers to culture in the second sense, while Claude Levi
4° WiJlirJ11l H SCil'df, Jr. rile Conceptis) a/Culture 41
Strauss's notion that cultural meaning is structured by systems of op gling to establish that differences between societies were not based
positions is a claim about culture in the first sense, Hence their theo on biological differences between their populations-that is, on
ries of "culture" arc, strictly speaking, incommensurate: they refer to race-a definition of culture as learned behavior made sense. But
different conceptual universes. Failure to recognize this distinction now that racial arguments have virtually disappeared from anthro
between two fundamentally different meanings of the term has real pological discourse, a concept of culture so broad as this seems im
consequences for contemporary cultural theory; some of the im possibly vague; it provides no particular angle or analytical purchase
passes of theoretical discourse in contemporary anthropology are at on the study of social life.
tributable precisely to an unrecognized elision of the two, TIlUS, a A narrower and consequently more useful conceptualization of
dissatisfaction with "Benedictine" etlmographies that present cul culture emerged in anthropology during the second quarter of the
tures as uniformly well-bounded and coherent has led to what seem twentieth century and has been dominant in the social sciences gen
to me rather confused attacks on "the culture concept" in general erally since World War II. It defines culture not as all learned behav
atl,lcks that [ail to distinguish Benedictine claims about the tight in ior but as that category or aspect of learned behavior that is con
tegrillion of cultures from Levi-Straussian claims about the semiotic cerned with meaning. But the concept of culture-as-meaning is in fact
coherence of culture as a system of meanings J ' Conversely, anthro a family of related concepts; meaning may be used to specify a cul
pologists who defend the culture concept also tend to conflate the '. tural realm or sphere in at least four distinct ways, each of which is
two meanings, regarding claims that cultures are rent with fissures defined in contrast to somewhat differently conceptualized noncul
or that their boundaries are porous as implying an abandonment of tural realms or spheres.
the concept of culture altogether. Culture as all institutional sphere devoted to the making of meaning.
Here, 1 will be concerned primarily with culture in the first This conception of culture is based on the assumption that social
sense-culture as a category of social life. One must have a clear con formations are composed of clusters of institutions devoted to spe
ception of culture at this abstract level in order to deal with the more cialized activities. These clusters can be assigned to variously de
concrete theoretical question of how cultural differences are pat fined institutional spheres-most conventionally, spheres of poli
terned and bounded in space and time. Once 1 have sketched out my tics, economy, society, and culture. Culture is the sphere devoted
own ideas about what an adequate abstract theory of culture might specifically to the production, circulation, and use of meanings. The
look like, I will return to the question of culture as a bounded uni cultural sphere may in turn be broken down into the subspheres of
verse of beliefs and practices-to the question of cultures in the which it is composed: say, of art, music, theater, fashion, literature,
Benedictine sense. religion, media, and education. The study of culture, if culture is
defined in this way, is the study of the activities that take place within
these institutionally defined spheres and of the meanings produced
CULTURE AS A CATEGORY OF SOCIAL LIFE
in them.
Cultu re as a category of social life has itself been conceptualized in a This conception of culture is particularly prominent in the dis
number of different ways. Let me begin by specifying some of these courses of sociology and cultural studies, but it is rarely used in an
different conceptualizations, moving from those I do not find espe thropology. Its roots probably reach back to the strongly evaluative
cially useful to those 1 find more adequate. conception of culture as a sphere of "high" or "uplifting" artistic and
Cultnre t1~ learned bclnnnor. Culture in this sense is the whole body intellectual activity, a meaning that Raymond Wi! Iiams tells us came
of f'ri1ctice~, beliefs, inst itut ions, customs, habits, myths, and so on into prominence in the nineteenth century.IS Bu t in contemporary
built up by humans and passed on from gcneration to genemtion.ln academic discourse, this usage normally lacks such evaluative and
this usage, culture is contrasted to nature: its possession is what dis hierarchizing implications. The dominant style of work in American
tinguishes LIS from other animals. When anthropologists were strug sociology of culture has been demystifying: its typical approach has
42 Williall1 H. Setccll, Jr. The Conceptts) o/Culture 43
been 10 uncover the largely self-aggrandizing, class-interested, rna also become pervasive in the vernacular of American sociology. One
nipulntive, or professionalizing institutional dynamics that under clear sign that American anthropologists and sociologists have dif
gird prestigious museums, artistic styles, symphony orchestras, or ferent conceptions of culture is that the opposition between culture
philosophical schools. And cultural studies, which has taken as its and structure-an unquestioned commonplace in contemporary so
particular mission the appreciation of cultural forms disdained by ciological discourse-is nonsensical in anthropology.
the spokesmen of high culture-rock music, street fashion, cross In my opinion, identifying culture with agency and contrasting it
dressing, shopping malls, Disneyland, soap operas-employs this with structure merely perpetuates the same determinist materialism
same basic definition of culture. It merely trains its analytical atten that "culturalist" Marxists were reacting against in the first place. It
lion on spheres of meaning production ignored by previous analysts exaggerates both the implacability of socioeconomic determinations
and regarded as debased by elite tastemakers. and the free play of symbolic action. Both socioeconomic and cul
TIle problem with such a concept of culture is that it focuses only tural processes are blends of structure and agency. Cultural action
on a ceria in range of meanings, produced in a certain range of insti say, performing practical jokes or writing poems-is necessarily
tutional locations-c-on self-consciously "cultural" institutions and constrained by cultural structures, such as existing linguistic, visual,
on expressive, artistic, and literary systems of meanings. This use of or ludic conventions. And economic action-such as the manufac
the concept is to some extent complicit with the Widespread notion ture or repair of automobiles-is impossible without the exercise of
that meanings arc of minimal importance in the other "noncultural" creativity and agency. The particulars of the relationship between
institutional spheres: that in political or economic spheres, meanings structure and agency may differ in cultural and economic processes,
are merely superstructural excrescences. And since institutions in but assigning either the economic or the cultural exclusively to struc
political and economic spheres control the great bulk of society's re ture or to agency is a serious category error.
sources, viewing culture as a distinct sphere of activity milY in the This brings us to the two concepts of culture that I regard as most
end simply confirm the Widespread presupposition in the "harder" fruitful and that I see as currently struggling for dominance: the con
social sciences that culture is merely froth on the tides of society. 111e cept of culture as a system of symbols and meanings, which was
rise of a cultural sociology that limited itself to studying "cultural" hegemonic in the 1960s and 1970S'and the concept of culture as prac
institutions effected a partition of subject matter that was very un tice, which has become increasingly prominent in the 1980s and
favornble to the cultural sociologists. Indeed, only the supercession 1990s.
of this restrictive concept of culture has made possible the explosive Culture asasystem ofsymbolsand meanings. This has been the domi
growth of the subfield of cultural sociology in the past decade. nant concept of culture in American anthropology since the 1960s. It
Culture as creativity 01' ascllcy. This usage of culture has grown up was made famous above all by Clifford Geertz, who used the term
particularly in traditions that posit a powerful "material" determin "cultural system" in the titles of some of his most notable essays.!"
ism-most notably Marxism and American sociology. Over the past The notion was also elaborated by David Schneider, whose writ
three decades or so, scholars working within these traditions have ings had a considerable influence within anthropology but lacked
carved out a conception of culture as a realm of creativity that es Geertz's interdisciplinary appeal." Geertz and Schneider derived the
cRpes from the otherwise pervasive determination of social action by term from Talcott Parsons's usage, according to which the cultural
economic or social structures. In the Marxist tradition, it was proba system, a system of symbols and meanings, was a particular "level of
bly E. r. Thompson's !v1I1ki"S (:f Hit' Ellglislr Workillg Class that first con abstraction" of social relations. It was contrasted to the "social sys
ceptualized culture as a realm of agency, and it is particularly En tem," which was a system of norms and institutions, and to the "per
glish Marxists-v-for example, Paul Willis in Learning to Labor-who sonality system," which was a system of rnotivations.!? Geertz and
hilH' elaborated this conccpt ion.!" But the defining opposition on Schneider especially wished to distinguish the cultural system from
which this concept of culture rests- culture versus structure-has the social system. To engage in cultural analysis, for them, was to
IVi/Halll H. Sf1l'cll, Jr. Tile COllcepf(s) of Culture 45
44
abstract the meaningful aspect of human action out from the flow of In anthropology, Sherry Ortner in 1984 remarked on the turn to
concrete interactions. The point of conceptualizing culture as a sys politics, history, and agency, suggesting Pierre Bourdieu's key term
tem of symbols and meanings is to disentangle, for the purpose of "practice" as an appropriate label for this emerging sensibility. Two
analysis, the semiotic influences on action from the other sorts of years later the publication of James Clifford and George Marcus's col
influences-demographic, geographical, biological, technological, lection Writing Culture announced to the public the crisis of anthro
economic, and so on-that they are necessarily mixed with in any pology's culture concept." Since then, criticisms of the concept of
concrete sequence of behavior. culture as a system of symbols and meanings have flowed .thick and
Ceertzs and Schneider's post-Parsonian theorizations of cultural fast. The most notable work in anthropology has argued for the con
systems were by no means the only available models for symbolic tradictory, politically charged, changeable, and fragmented charac
anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s. The works of Victor Turner, ter of meanings-both meanings produced in the societies being
whose theoretical origins were in the largely Durkheirnian British studied and meanings rendered in anthropological texts. Recent
school of social anthropology, were also immensely influential." work in anthropology has in effect recast culture as performsa
Claude Levi-Strauss and his many followers provided an entire al tive term. .
ternative model of culture as a system of symbols and meanings Not surprisingly, this emphasis on the performative aspect of cul
conceptualized, following Saussure, as signifiers and signifieds. ture is compatible with the work of most cultural historians. Histori
Moreover, all these anthropological schools were in a sense manifes ans are generally uncomfortable with synchronic concepts. As they
, tations of a much broader "linguistic turn" in the human sciences took up the study of culture, they subtly -but usually without com
a diverse but sweeping attempt to specify the structures of human ment-altered the concept by stressing the contradictoriness and
symbol systems and to indicate their profound influence on human malleability of cultural meanings and by seeking out the mecha
behavior. One thinks above all of such French "structuralist" think nisms by which meanings were transformed. The battles in history
ers as Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, or the early Michel Foucault. have been over a different issue, pitting those who claim that histori
What all of these approaches had in common was an insistence on cal change should be understood as a purely cultural or discursive
the systematic nature of cultural meaning and the autonomy of sym process against those who argue for the significance of economic and
bol systems-their distinctness from and irreducibility to other fea social determinations or for the centrality of concrete "experience" in
lures of social life. They all abstracted a realm of pure signification understanding it. 22
out from the complex messiness of social life and specified its inter Sociologists, for rather different reasons, have also favored a more
nal coherence and deep logic. Their practice of cultural analysis con performative conception of culture. Given the hegemony of a
sequently tended to be more or less synchronic and formalist. strongly causa list methodology and philosophy of science in con
Culture ns practice. The past decade and a half has witnessed a per temporary sociology, cultural sociologists have felt a need to demon
vasive reaction against the concept of culture as a system of symbols strate that culture has causal efficacy in order to gain recognition for
and meanings, which has taken place in various disciplinary 10 ,~,
their fledgling subfield. This has led many of them to construct cul
cations and intellectual traditions and under many different slo ture as a collection of variables whose influence on behavior can be
gans-for example, "practice," "resistance," "history," "politics," or rigorously compared to that of such standard sociological variables
"culture as tool ki L" Analysts working under all these banners object as class, etlmicity, gender, level of education, economic interest, and
10 a portrayal of culture as logical, coherent, shared, uniform, and the like. As a result, they have moved away from earlier Weberian,
static. Instead lhey insist that culture is a sphere of practical activity Durkheimian, or Parsonian conceptions of culture as rather vague
c;hot through by willful action, power relations, struggle, contradic and global value orientations to what Ann Swidler has termed a
lion, and change, "tool kit" composed of a "repertoire" of "strategies of action." 21 For
many cultural sociologists, then, culture is not a coherent system of gued, conventional modes of writing in cultural anthropology typi
symbols and meanings but a diverse collection of "tools" that, as the cally smuggle highly debatable assumptions into ethnographic ac
metaphor indicates, are to be understood as means for the perfor counts-for example, that cultural meanings are normally shared,
mance of action. Because these tools are discrete, local, and intended fixed, bounded, and deeply felt. To Clifford's critique of ethno
for specific purposes, they can be deployed as explanatory variables graphic rhetoric, I would add a critique of ethnographic method. An
in a way that culture conceived as a translocal, generalized system of thropologists working with a conception of culture-as-system have
meanings C<11Ul0t. tended to focus on clusters of symbols and meanings that can be
shown to have a high degree of coherence or systematicity-those of
American kinship or Balinese cockfighting, for instance-and to pre
CULTURE AS SYSTEM AND PRACTICE
sent their accounts of these clusters as examples of what the inter
Much of the theoretical writing on culture during the past ten years pretation of culture in general entails. This practice results in what
has assumed that a concept of culture as a system of symbols and sociologists would call sampling on the dependent variable. That is,
meanings is at odds with a concept of culture as practice. System anthropologists who belong to this school tend to select symbols and
and practice approaches have seemed incompatible, I think, be meanings that cluster neatly into coherent systems and pass over
cause the most prominent practitioners of the culture-as-system those that are relatively fragmented or incoherent, thus confirming
of-meanings approach effectively marginalized consideration of the hypothesis that symbols and meanings indeed form tightly co
culture-as-practice-if they didn't preclude it altogether. herent systems.
This can be seen in the work of both Clifford Geertz and David Given some of these problems in the work of the culture-as
Schneider. Geertz's analyses usually begin auspiciously enough, in system school, the recent turn to a concept of culture-as-practice
that he frequently explicates cultural systems in order to resolve a has been both understandable and fruitful-it has effectively high
puzzle arising from concrete practices-a state funeral, trances, a lighted many of the earlier school's shortcomings and made up some
royal procession, cockfights. But it usually turns out that the issues of of its most glaring analytic deficits. Yet the presumption that a con
practice are principally a means of moving the essay to the goal of cept of culture as a system of symbols and meanings is at odds with
specifying in a synchronic form the coherence that underlies the ex a concept of culture as practice seems to me perverse. System and
otic cultural practices in question. And while Geertz marginalized practice are complementary concepts: each presupposes the other.
questions of practice, Schneider, in a kind of reductioad absurdum, ex To engage in cultural practice means to utilize existing cultural sym
plicitly excluded them, arguing that the particular task of anthropol bols to accomplish some end. The employment of a symbol can be
ogy in the academic division of labor was to study "culture as a sys expected to accomplish a particular goal only because the symbols
tem of symbols and meanings in its own right and with reference to have more or less determinate meanings-meanings specified by
its own structure" and leaving to others-sociologists, historians, their systematically structured relations to other symbols. Hence
political scientists, or economists-the question of how social action practice implies system. But it is equally true that the system has
was structured." A "cultural account," for Schneider, should be lim no existence apart from the succession of practices that instanti
ited to specifying the relations among symbols in a given domain of ate, reproduce. or-most interestingly-transform it. Hence system
meaning-which he tended to render unproblematically as known implies practice." System and practice constitute an indissoluble
and accepted by all members of the society and as possessing a duality or dialectic: the important theoretical question is thus not
hi~hh· determinate formal logic." whether culture should be conceptualized as practice or as a system
Nor is the work of Cecrtz and Schneider unusual in its margin of symbols and meanings, but how to conceptualize the articulation
alization of practice. As critics such as James Clifford have ar- of system and practice.
48 William H. Scwcll, Jr. The Concepits) oj CII !t II re 49
given set of symbolic oppositions does not determine what sort of are interlocked in practice with other structures-economic, politi
statements or actions they will construct on the basis of their semi cal, social, spatinl, and so on.>
otic competence. Nor does it mean that they form a community in Thus far in this section I have mainly been considering culture as
any fuller sense. They need not ilgree in their moral or emotional system. But what I have said has implications for how we might con
evaluations of given symbols. The semiotic field they share may be ceptualize culture as practice. First, the conception of culture as
recognized and used by groups and individuals locked in fierce en semiotic implies a particular notion of cultural practice. To engage in
mity rather than bound by solidarity, or by people who feel relative cultural practice is to make use of a semiotic code to do something in
indifference toward each other. The posited existence of cultural co the world. People who are members of a semiotic community are ca
herence says nothing about whether semiotic fields are big or small, pable not only of recognizing statements made in a semiotic code (as
shallow or Jeep, encompassing?r specialized. It simply requires that I have pointed out above) but of using the code as well, of putting it
if meaning is to exist at all, there must be systematic relations among into practice. To use a code means to attach abstractly available sym
( signs and a group of people who recognize those relations. bols to concrete things or circumstances and thereby to posi t some
That this Saussurian conception implies only a thin cultural co thing about them. I would also argue that to be able to use a code
herence seems consonant with certain deconstructionist arguments. means more than being able to apply it mechanically in stereotyped
The entire thrust of deconstruction has been to reveal the instability situations-it also means having the ability to elaborate it, to modify
of linguistic meaning. It has located this instability in the signifying or adapt its rules to novel circumstances.
mechanism of language itself-s-claiming that because the meaning of What things in the world are is never fully determined by the sym
a linguistic sign always depends on a contrast with what the sign is bolic net we throw over them-this also depends on their preexist
opposed to or different from, language is inevitably haunted by the 1 ing physical characteristics, the spatial relations in which they occur,
the relations of power with which they are invested, their economic
traces of the very terms it excludes. Consequently, the meaning of a
text or an u ttcrance can never be fixed; attempts to secure meaning value, and, of course, the different symbolic meanings that may have
can only defer, never exclude, a plethora of alternative or opposed been attributed to them by other actors. The world is recalcitrant to
interpretations. our predications of meaning. Hence, as Marshall Sahlins has pointed
Cultural analysts who-like me-wish to argue that cultural sys out, every act of symbolic attribution puts the symbols at risk, ma~es
terns are powerfully constraining have often drawn back from de it possible that the meanings of the symbols will be inflected or trans
constructionist arguments in horror. I think this is a major mistake; formed by the uncertain consequences of practice. Usually, such at,
indeed, I would maintain that a broadly deconstructionist under tributions result in only tiny inflections of the meaning of symbols.
standing of meaning is essential for anyone attempting to theorize But on some occasions-for example, when Hawaiian chiefs used
cultural change. Deconstruction does not deny the possibility of co the category of tabu to enforce their monopoly on trade with West
herence. Rather, it assumes that the coherence inherent in a system of ern merchants-novel attributions can have the result of transform
symbols is thin in the sense I have described: it demonstrates over ing the meaning of a symbol in historically crucial ways."'
and over that what are taken as the certainties or truths of texts or Part of what gives cultural practice its potency is the ability of
discourses are in fact disputable and unstable. This seems entirely actors to play on the multiple meanings of symbols-thereby re
compatible with a practice perspective on culture. It assumes that defining situations in ways that they believe will favor their pur
symbol systems have a (Saussurian) logic but that this logic is open poses. Creative cultural action commonly entails the purposeful or
ended, not closed. And it strongly implies that when a given symbol spontaneous importation of meanings from one social location or
S\'SIC111 is taken by its users to be unambiguous and highly con context to another. I have recently worked on a telling example of
straining, these qualities cannot be accounted for by their semiotic the importation of meaning. The men and women who captured the
qualil ios alone but must result from the WilY their semiotic structures Bastille in July of 1789 were unquestionably characterizable as "the
52 Wilfiillll H. Scit'cll, fl'. rile Conceptts) of Culture 53
people" in the common sense of "the mob" or the "urban poor." But briands, Evans-Prichard on the Nuer, or, for that matter, Geertz on
Parisian radicals and members of the french National Assembly the Balinese. But recent research and thinking about cultural prac
played on the ambiguity of the term to cast those who took the tices, even in relatively "simple" societies, has turned this classic
Bastille also as a concrete instance of the abstract category of "the model on its head. It now appears that we should think of worlds of
people" who were said to be sovereign in radical political theory. Im meaning as normally being contradictory, loosely integrated, con
porting the association between the people and sovereignty from the tested, mutable, and highly permeable. Consequently the very con
context of political theory into that of urban crowd violence had the cept of cultures as coherent and distinct entities is widely disputed:.....J ~
not inconsequential effect of ushering the modern concept of revolu Cultures are contradicioru. Some authors of classic ethnographies
tion into the world." were quite aware of the presence of contradictions in the cul
tures they studied. Victor Turner, for example, demonstrated that
red symbolism in certain Ndembu rituals simultaneously signified
CULTURES AS DISTINCT WORLDS OF MEANING
the contradictory principles of matrilineal fertility and male blood
Up to now, I have been considering culture only in its singular and letting. But he emphasized how these potentially contradictory
abstract sense-as a realm of social life defined in contrast to some meanings were brought together and harmonized in ritual perfor
other noncultural realm or realms. My main points may be summa mances.F A current anthropological sensibility would probably em
rized as follows: culture, I have argued, should be understood as a phasize the fundamental character of the contradictions rather than
dialectic of system and practice, as a dimension of social life au their situational resolution in the ritual. It is common for potent cul
tonomous from other such dimensions both in its logic and in its spa tural symbols to express contradictions as much as they express co
tial configuration, and as a system of symbols possessing a(real but herence. One need look no farther than the central Christian symbol
thin cohercnce)h<lt is continually put at risk in practice and therefore of the Trinity, which attempts to unify in one symbolic figure three
subject to transformation. Such a theorization, I maintain, makes it sharply distinct and largely incompatible possibilities of Christian
possible to accept the cogency of recent critiques yet retain a work religious experience: authoritative and hierarchical orthodoxy (the
able and powerful concept of culture that incorporates the achieve Father), loving egalitarianism and grace (the Son), and ecstatic spon
ments of the cultural anthropology of the 1960s and 1970s. taneity (the Holy Ghost). Cultural worlds are commonly beset with
But it is probably fair to SilY that most recent theoretical work all internal contradictions.
culture, particularly in anthropology, is actually concerned primar Cultures are loosely integrated. Classic ethnographies recognized
ily with culture in its pluralizable and more concrete sense-that is, that societies were composed of different spheres of activity-for
with cultures as distinct worlds of meaning. Contemporary anthro example, kinship, agriculture, hunting, warfare, and religion-and
pological critics' objections to the concept of culture as system and that each of these component parts had its own specific cultural
their insistence on the primacy of practice are not, in my opinion, re forms. Out the classic ethnographers typically saw it as their task
ally aimed at the concept of system as outlined above-the notion to show how these culturally varied components fit into a well
that the meaning of symbols is determined by their network of rela integrated cultural whole. Most contemporary students of culture
tions with other syrnbols.lRather, the critics' true target is the idea would question this emphasis. They are more inclined to stress the
~ that cultures (in the second, pluralizable sense) form neatly coherent centrifugal cultural tendencies that arise from these disparate
wholes: that they are logically consistent, highly integrated, consen spheres of activity, to stress the inequalities between those relegated
su.rl. extremely resistant to change, and clearly bounded. This is how to different activities, and to see whatever "integration" occurs as
cultures tended to be represented in the classic ethnographies based on power or domination rather than on a common ethos. That
f\ lead 011 5'11lIOa, Bened iet 011 the Zuni, Ma linowski on the 1"1'0 most anthropologists now work on complex, stratified, and highly
William H. Sewell, Jr. Tile Conceptis) of Culture 55
54
differentiated societies, rather than on the "simple" societies that have long been important social and cultural processes that tran
were the focus of most classic etlulOgraphies, probably enhances this scend societal boundaries-colonialism, missionary religions, inter
tendency. regional trading associations and economic interdependencies, mi
Cultures are col/tested. Classic ethnographies commonly assumed, gratory diasporas, and, in the current era, multinational corporations
at least implicitly, that a culture's most important beliefs were con and transnational nongovernmental organizations. Although these
sensual, agreed on by virtually all of a society's members. Contem transsocietal processes are certainly more prominent in more recent
porary scholars, with their enhanced awareness of race, class, and history than previously, they are hardly entirely new. Think of the
gender, would insist that people who occupy different positions spread of such "world religions" as Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, or
in a given social order will typically have quite different cultural be Buddhism across entire regions of the globe or the development of
liefs or will have quite different understandings of what might extensive territorial empires in the ancient world. I would argue that
seem on the surface to be identical beliefs. Consequently, current social science's once virtually unquestioned model of societies as
scholarship is replete with depictions of "resistance" by subordi clearly bounded entities undergoing endogenous development is as
nated groups and individuals. Thus James Scott detects "hidden perverse for the study of culture as for the study of economic history
~.
56 William H. Sewell, Jr. The Conceptts) ojCulture 57
religions, communications media, business corporations, and, most implies a recognition of their centrality. Dominant and oppositional
spectacularly, states. These institutions, which tend to be relatively groups interact constantly, each undertaking its initiatives with the
large in scale, centralized, and wealthy, are all cultural actors; their other in mind. Even when they attempt to overcome or undermine
agents make continuous use of their considerable resources in ef each other, they are mutually shaped by their dialectical dance.
forts to order meanings. Studies of culture need to pay at least as Struggle and resistance, far from demonstrating that cultures lack
much attention to such sites of concentrated cultural practice as to coherence, may paradoxically have the effect of simplifying and clar
the dispersed sites of resistance that currently predominate in the ifying the cultural field.
literature. 37 Moreover, dissenting or oppositional groups work to create and
Even in powerful and would-be totalitarian states, centrally sustain cultural coherence among their own adherents, and they do
placed actors are never able to establish anything approaching so by many of the same strategies-hierarchization, encapsulation,
cultural uniformity. In fact they rarely attempt to do so. The typical exclusion, and the like-that the authorities use. Once again, it is no
cultural strategy of dominant actors and institutions is not so much table that the concept of culture is as likely to be deployed politically
to establish uniformity as it is to organize difference. They are con by dissident groups as by dominant institutions, and with many of
stantly engaged in efforts not only to normalize or homogenize but the same exclusionary, normalizing, and marginalizing effects as
also to hierarchize, encapsulate, exclude, criminalize, hegemonize, when it is deployed by the state. To take an obvious example, dissi
or marginalize practices and populations that diverge from the sanc dent nationalist and ethnic movements nearly always attempt to im
tioned ideal. By such means, authoritative actors attempt, with vary pose standards of cultural purity on those deemed members of the
ing degrees of success, to impose a certain coherence onto the field of group and to use such standards to distinguish between those who
cultural practice.?" Indeed, one of the major reasons for dissident are and are not group members.
anthropologists' discomfort with the concept of culture is that it is None of this, of course, implies that cultures are always, every
so often employed in all of these WClys by various powerful institu where, or unproblematically coherent. It suggests instead that coher
tional actors-sometimes, alas, with the help of anthropologists. ence is variable, contested, ever-changing, and incomplete. Cultural ~
The kind of coherence produced by this process of organizing coherence, to the extent tha t it exists, is as much the prod uct of power
difference may be far from the tight cultural integration depicted and struggles for power as it is of semiotic logic. But it is common for
in classic ethnographies. But when authoritative actors distinguish the operation of power, both the efforts of central institutions and the
between high and low cultural practices or between those of the acts of organized resistance to such institutions, to subject potential
majority ethnicity and minorities or between the legal and the crimi semiotic sprawl to a certain order: to prescribe (contested) core val
nal or between the normal and the abnormal, they bring widely vary ues, to impose discipline on dissenters, to describe boundaries and
ing practices into semiotic relationship-that is, into definition in norms-in short, to give a certain focus to the production and con
terms of contrasts with one another. Authoritative cultural action, sumption of meaning. As cultural analysts we must aCknOWledge}
launched from the centers of power, has the effect of turning what such coherences where they exist and set ourselves the task of ex
otherwise might be a babble of cultural voices into a semiotically and plaining how they are achieved, sustained, and dissolved.
politically ordered field of differences. Such action creates a map of It is no longer possible to assume that the world is divided up into
the" culture" and its variants, one that tells people where they and discrete "societies," each with its corresponding and well-integrated
their practices fit in the official scheme of things. "culture." I would argue forcefully for the value of the concept of
The official cultural map may, of course, be criticized and resisted culture in its nonpluralizable sense, while the utility of the term as
bv those relegated to its margins. But subordinated groups must to .~:
pluralizable appears to me more open to legitimate question. Yet I
~-.:i
some degrec orient their local systems of meaning to those recog :
think that the latter concept of culture also gets at something we
nized <IS dominant; the act of contesting dominant meanings itself need to retain: a sense of the particular shapes and consistencies of
./
William H. SC1PC!!, Jr. Tire Concepus) Of Culture 59
58
worlds of meaning in different places and times and a sense that in Culture." in RecapturingA/llhropology: Workillg ;1/ the Present, ed. Richard C.
spite of conflicts and resistance, these worlds of meaning somehow Fox (Santa Fe, 1991), pp. 137- 62.
10. Brightman, "Forget Culture," p. 510 .
hang together. Whether we call these partially coherent landscapes 11. James Clifford, Tile Predicament of Culture: Twcntietll-Celltllry Ethnog
of meaning "cultures" or something else-worlds of meaning, or raphy, Literature,and Art (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), P: 10.
ethnoscapes. or hegemonies-seems to me relatively unimportant 12. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, rev.
so long as we know that their bounded ness is only relative and con ed. (London, 1983), p. 87. See also Raymond Williams, Culture and Sociely:
stantly shifting. Our job as cultural analysts is to discern what the 1780-1950 (New York, 1958).
I. For a discerning aualysis of this debate, sec Robert Brighllll'lIl, "Forget 1 7. Clifford Ceertz, "Religion as a Cultural System" and "Ideology as a
Culture: Replacement, Transcendence, Relexification," CuituvatAlllhropology Cultural System," in Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 87-125, 193- 233; "Com
10 (1995): 5°9-4 0. mon Sense as a Cultural System" and "Art as a Cultural System," in Local
2. One outcome of these efforts was William H. Sewell, [r., Work and KllOwledge: Further Essays ill Interpretioe Anthropology (New York, 1 98 3), pp.
RtTtllll/iml in Frmlcc: TI,c Lmlgllogc or Lllh1l'/nllll III" Old Resilllt' I" 1848 (Cam 73-93, 94 -120.
bridge, 1<)80). 18. David M. Schneider's most influential book is American Kinship: A
3. This tum of historians to anthropolt1gy W,1S quite widespread in the Cultural Accoullt (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968). The most systematic state
lQ70S, not only in Amcrrca, where it informed the work of such scholars as ment of his conception of a cultural system is David M. Schneider, "Notes
Natalie Davis and Robert Darnton, but also in France, England, and Aus toward a Theory of Culture," in Meaning in Anthropology, ed. Keith H. Basso
tralia, where antluopology influenced such scholars as Emmanuel Lc Roy and Henry A. Selby (Albuquerque, 1976), pp. 1 97- 2 2 0 .
Ladur ie, Jacques Le Goff, Keith Thomas, Peter Laslett, and Rhys Isaac. 1 9. Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, Ill., 1959)' Geertz and
4· Clifford Ceertz, Tilt' Intcrprciation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New Schneider were both students of Talcott Parsons and Clyde Kluckhohn in
York, 1(73). the Harvard Department of Social Relations and they taught together dur
). Jacques Derrida, Of Gmllllllalology, trans. Cayatri Chakravorty Spivak ing the 1960s at the University of Chicago, then the epicenter of cultural
(Baltirnore, ]976). anthropology.
6. A good introduction 10 this current of scholarship is II. Aram Veeser, 20. Victor W. Turner, Tile Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual
ed., Tilt' New Hisit,,-ic;slH (New York, 198<)). (Ithaca, N.Y., 1967), The Ritual Process: Structure and Allti-Structure (Chicago,
1 96 9), and Reoelaiion and Ditnnation ill Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, N.Y., 975).
1
7. Lynn Hunt, ed., TTl" New Cultural His/my (Berkeley, 1989).
8. The most celebrated expression of this angst is the collective volume 21. Sherry Ortner, "Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties," Compara
edited bv James Clifford and George E. Marcus, Wrilillg Culture: Tuc Poetics tive Sludies ill History and Society 26 (1984): 126-66; Pierre Bourdieu, Outline
'md pt1ri/ics llf [117110<"1'111"1.11 (Berkeley, 1980). of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, 1977); Clifford and
q. Geertz, Jllfcq,rcla/itl/f ofCllltllrcs,and Lila Abu-Lughocl, "Writing aguinst Marcus, Writing Culture.
60 Wil1iall/ H. Se1l'(I1, Jr. Tlte Concepiis) of Culture 61
22. Joan W. Scott has been at rho center of much of Ihis polemic. "On Lan ]2. Turner, Forcst ofSym/lols, PP' 41-4J·
guage, Cender, and Working-Class I lis lory," lntcrualional luuor 11 lid Workillg 33. Sahlins, Historical MelapllOrs, p. 46. See also James Scott, Weapons of lite
C/I1SS History, 110. :'11 (spring 1987): I-1J, was a response 10 Gareth Stedman Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985).
Jones, LllIlglll1ges 4 Class: Sf IIdies ill Ellglisll Workillg Cll1sS H islory, 18)2 -1982 34. Renata I. Rosaldo, l/oJlgol HendIJlIII/;llg, 1883-1974: A Siudy iJl Society
(Cambridge. 1984). This essay was published with responses in the same is and Hislory (Stanford, 1980).
sue by Bryan D. Palmer (14 -21), Christine Stansell (24 -29), and Anson Ra J5. Arjun Appadurars work on recent forms of transnational cultural
bin bach (30- ]6); Scott then responded to their critiques in no. ]2 ([fall 1987]: forms has been particularly influential. See, e.g., "Global Ethnoscapes: Notes
39-45). Scott criticizes John Toews, "Intellectual History after the Linguistic and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology," in Fox, ed., Recapturing An
Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and Ihe lrreducibility of Experience," Ihropology, PP' 191-210, and Modemi'y at Large: Cultural D;/IICIISiOll5 of Glob
American Historical Recieio 92 (1987): 879-907, in "Experience," in Feminists alization (Minneapolis, 1996).
Theorize the Political, ed. Joan W. Scott and Judith Buller (New York, 1992), 36. For a critical discussion of such work, see Sherry B. Ortner, "Resis
pp. 22- 40. Laura Lee DOWl1s criticizes Scolt in "If 'Woman' Is Just an Empty tance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal," Comparaiiue Sit/dies ill Sod
Category, Then Why Am I Afraid to Walk Alone at Night? Identity Politics etyaJld H;story 37 (1995): 173-93·
Meets the Postmodern Subject," Compomtii-c Studies ill Societyand Hision; J5 37. For a fascinating study of state cultural practices, see Lisa Wedeen,
(1993): 4l4-J7; Scott's response, "The Tip of the Volcano" (4]8-4J), and Ambiguilies0fDolllillatiol/: Politics, Rhetoric, aud SYlllbols ill COl/telllporary Syria
Downs's reply (,l44 -51) are published in the same volume. Perhaps the most (Chicago, forthcoming, 1999)·
blistering dcnunciauon of discursive history is Brian D. Palmer, Descent into 38. 'I11is characterization seems to me to be roughly consonant with a
Discourse: The Rciiication of Lallgllasr aud lite WrilillX t~{ Social Hislory (Phila Gramscian idea of hegemony; see Antonio Crarnsci, Selections[rom the Prison
delphia, 19(0). For a discussion of l11ilny of these issues, see Joyce Appleby, No/ebook~, ed. and trans, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New
Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Tel/illS ti,e Tl'/lt/I abou! Hislory (New York, York, 1971). For two quill' different Gramscian cultural analyses of politics,
1994). pp. 19!'l-2J7· see Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Rcnctoal: Thotclicrism and tile Crisis of the Lefl
2J. Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies." American (London, 1988), and David D. Laitin, Hcgel1lol/Y and Culture: Politics and Reli
So(iolog;ml Rel'ieil' 51 (1984): 273-86. giolls Gral/gcal/lOI/S tile Yorllbtl (Chicago, 1986).
24. Schneider, "Noles toward a Theory of CuItUI'('," 214.
25. See, e.g., Schneider, American Kiushu). _,
26. Readers of Marshall Sahlins should find this formulation familiar. See
especially 1511/11.15 o{llislol'll (Chicago, 19R5), pp. 1]6-56.
27. For a fuller exposition of this perspective, see William I-1. Sewell, [r.,
"Toward a I'ost-Materialist Rhetoric for Labor I listory," in Retllil/kil/S Labor
History: Essl1ys 0/1 Disco utsc and Class Analusi«, cd. Lenard R. Berlanstein (Ur
bana, 111., 1(93), IS -:\8.
28. On the spatial aspect of culture, see Claudio Lomnitz-Adler, "Con
cepts for the Study of Regional Culture," American Et/11I0logist 18 (1991):
1Q5-214·
29. This is not, of course, the usual conclusion arrived at by deconstruc
tionists. who would insist that these "other structures" are no less textual
than semiotic structures and that making sense of them is purely a matter of
n.
intertextuality. This epistemological and perhaps ontological difference be
tween m v posit ion and that of deconstruction should make it clear that I am
ilppwpriating from deconstruction specific ideas that I find useful rather
than adopting a full-scale deconstructionist position.
_10. Marshall Sahlins, Ilisloricl/l Mclo"'lor~ aud lI·hllhic(/II\('olili/'~ (Ann Ar
b or, 1(81), esp, pp, 67-72, and Islands o(l{;slol'tl, pp. \]6-56.
31. \Villiam H. Sewell, [r.. "Political Events as Transformations of Sl ruc
lures: lnvcntmg Revolution at the Bastille," "'ht'o/~11 1/11.1 SociclP 26 (19'16):
84 1 - 8 1.