CT reading group 23/Jan/07
This week's CT reading group was more about what Cultural Theory can deal with and how we can understand it rather than the book 'Cultural Theory'.
There are two main questions;
- Based on social constructivism, how can we understand the words/terms/concepts used in arguments. For example, Cultural Theory explains how different cultural bias construct the ideas of 'nature' and 'risk'. But what is meant by 'nature' or 'risk'? Is there any agreed-upon conceptualization of what they are?
- How can we see the link between the way people understand things and the way actually they behave? Is there any relevance in talking about local/historical context as well as social context?
We also talked about how this reading group should be organized. Some people say that focusing on some concepts or topics seem to be easier to have discussion than article-based meeting.
We decided to work on the same book 'Cultural Theory' but part 3 for next meeting, which is 3.00-4.00pm, on 30th January, in James Martin Institute seminar room.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11.04 pm
I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be there, but I do have some comments.
I’m not sure what your first question is about. Didn’t you answer it yourself? What is meant by ‘nature’ or ‘risk’ depends on the cultural bias you are expressing. It is not agreed but ‘essentially contested’, ala Gallie 1956. There will be agreement within a particular bias, but not between. Am I not understanding you correctly?
Cultural Theory posits that how people behave is directly related to how they understand things. I think this was a major starting point for Mary Douglas. Was it in Natural Symbols that she showed how we naturally break experience down into relations between the self and other, and how we break them down shows our preference. Emphasising a father/son relationship would suggest a high-grid leaning, whilst a collegial or brother/sister relationship would suggest low-grid. I may not have this right, and I’ll try to find the reference. As for whether local/historical context matters, I think CT would probably say that those issues are intertwined with the social. How people relate socially now is the result of past relations, of the cyclical reinforcement of patterns of behaviour and the structure of social relations. That is grounded in history and local context. Does that help at all?
I agree that, after we finish this book, we would probably benefit more from a topic-based approach. I think a atricle-based approach for the first few was good though as it got some main texts under our belt. If you haven’t read those yet (i.e. you’re joining the group now) I highly suggest you catch up!!
Finally, I can’t make next Tuesday at that time. any chance we could move it to 11am?
Gallie, WB "Essentially Contested Concepts" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1956
January 23rd, 2007 at 11.48 pm
I tried to answer these questions and got confused.
‘Nature’ is refering to the idea of ‘five myth of nature’ in the book Cultural Theory. I understand that it is about what the world is, and about the reality. So, please think it as an ontological question of whether the reality exists. From the argument of ’surprise’, i think the answer is yes, the reality exists in cultural theory. But people have to construct it because they can only understand a partial picture of it.
‘Risk’ is a bit more confusing (at least for me). Imagine we are talking about the risk of Climate Change, for example. Based on Cultural Bias, I can see how different social institutions perceive the danger of Climate Change and come up with different kinds of solutions , but I am not sure if they are talking about the same ‘risk’ or even ‘Climate Change’. If they are different, what are they really talking about?
In the discussion, the question of gender was raised too. According to Cultural bias, different social groups conceptualise male and female in different ways. But where does the boundary of these two genders come from? If these boundary is different, it is not just the way they construct the idea of male but the group of people the word means that is different. If this is the case can we actually compare their idea of ‘male’?
It is very difficult for me to explain…
I hope someone will jump in here.
For local/historical context, I partially agree. This point was explained in Cultural Bias by Mary Douglas, I think. But do two institutions with the same social structure located in very different local/historical context behave in the same way? No influence from physical/material/geographical influence at all?
I will confirm the time of next meeting and let everyone know by email and this blog.
January 24th, 2007 at 12.57 am
On the question of whether reality exists, I think there is no
concensus among the CT crowd. I know that Rayner and a number of
others (including me) take the line that there are always external
forces at work on the individual and the social. Those external forces
could be considered to be ‘reality’, at least in the sense that they
impose themselves on our conscious and are not manifestations of it. Of course, in order to make any sense of external forces, we have to process them, imposing our biases. That’s a quagmire most cultural theorists stay out of, I think. I think that a good working understanding of CT probably involves the assumption that the information we are constantly processing exists external to ourselves, and that we do not process all information in all possible ways, but instead process selected information in selected ways. What information we choose to focus on, and how we process it, are the result of three things: 1) what information is available to us; 2) our cultural bias; and 3) our patterns of behaviour (i.e. social structure).
You’re right to bring up surprise, though. That’s the CT card that can be played against pure relativists. I’m not sure what a Woolgarian reply to the concept of surprise would be…
As for the climate change question, I think we should bring Steve Rayner in to answer that.
On the last point, I’d say that if they have the same social structure, they will likely exhibit a similar cultural bias, independent of physical/material/geographical influences. However, under different physical/material/geographical contexts, you may expect people to have different social structures and cultural biases. Does that make sense? Social structure and cultural bias are directly related, and both together are related to material context.
January 24th, 2007 at 12.52 pm
Sorry I couldn’t be there. We had a meeting, here at IIASA, of something calledthe P3b Group of the EU-funded ADAM Project, which is about Climate Change andDevelopment Aid. Quite interesting, from a CT point of view, since it soonbecame clear that the "development community" has always been (and still is)locked into the insufficiently variegated scheme (it goes way back to Sir HenryMaine, 1861 - a fellow of my old college, Corpus): just two solidarities -status (ie hierarchies) and contract (ie markets) - and a one-way historicaltransition ("traditional" to "modern" in Development Speak) from the former tothe latter. Framing policy in that unclumsy way, CTers would point out, ispretty well a guarantee that no development will happen!
I’m pretty much in agreement with Steve’s answers. Try thinking in terms of waysof organising, each requiring its distinctive bias, as in the dictum"Organisation is bias; bias is organisation". I remember getting Shiela Jasanoffto agree (it was at that Wye Plantation meeting, Steve) that there is noknowledge untainted by the organisation that produces it. "Okay, I said, inwhich case attention has to shift to the ways of organising: how many of themare there, what are they, what sort of taint do they impart to the variousknowledges they produce, and so on?". Shiela was having none of that (since itwould require there to be some limits on the proliferation of socialconstructions). So that’s the difference between the two approaches. There’s asection, in the last ch of CT (also in the Preface), where we deal with historyand contingency. As I remember, we don’t deny them, but we do point out that,just because there is history and contingency, it does not follow that historyand contingency is all there is (which is what Shiela and otheranti-institutionalists are insisting).
I agree it would be a good idea now to shift the attention to one or twoapplications of the theory.
Mike.
January 26th, 2007 at 12.01 pm
Now, the next cultural theory reading group is moved to Wednesday, 31st of January from 16.00 to 17.00 at James Martin Institute Seminar room.
The discussion will be focusing on Cultural Theory by M.Thompson, Part 3.
And we start to think about what topics we shall deal with in following group meetings, so please bring some ideas. Hope to see many people there.