Culture and Society

Culture and Society SOCIOLOGY FOR A CHANGING WORLD Series Editors: Roger King and Janet Finch Editorial Advisory Board: Frank Bechhofer, Sheila Cunnison, Sara Delamont, Geoff Payne and Liz Stanley This new series, published in conjunction with the British Sociological Association, evaluates and reflects major developments in contemporary sociology. The books will focus on key changes in social and economic life in recent years and on the ways in which the discipline of sociology has analysed those changes. The books will reflect the state of the art in contemporary British sociology, while at the same time drawing upon comparative material to set debates in an international perspective. Published Rosamund Billington, Sheelagh Strawbridge, Lenore Greensides and Annette Fitzsimons, Culture and Society Frances Heidensohn, Crime and Society Glen Morgan, Organizations in Society Andrew Webster, Science, Technology and Society: New Directions Forthcoming Lois Bryson, Who Benefits? Welfare in the Interventionist State Prue Chamberlayne, Brian Darling and Michael Rustin, A Sociology of Contemporary Europe Angela Glosner, Labour and Life in Contemporary Society Marilyn Porter, Changing Women: Sociology and Gender Mike Savage and Alan Warde, The New Urban Sociology Claire Wallace, Youth and Society CULTURE AND SOCIETY A Sociology of Culture Rosamund Billington Sheelagh Strawbridge Lenore Greensides Annette Fitzsimons pal grave macmillan © Rosamund Billington, Sheelagh Strawbridge, Lenore Greensides and Annette Fitzsimons 1991 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 3}-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1991 Published by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstokc, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Edited and typeset by Povey /Edmondson Okehampton and Rochdale, England British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Culture and Society: A sociology of culture. - (Sociology for a changing world; 0956-2915). 1. Culture I. Billington, Rosamund II. Series 306 ISBN 978-1-349-21518-8 (eBook) ISBN 978-0-333-46039-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21518-8 Series Standing Order (Sociology for a Changing World) If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they are published, you can make use of our standing order facility. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address and the name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your standing order. (If you live outside the United Kingdom we may not have the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your order to the publisher concerned.) Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 2XS, England Contents Introduction vii 1 1 What is Culture? 2 Theoretical and Methodological Issues in the Study of Culture 21 3 'High' Culture, Art and Aesthetics 44 4 Culture and Imperialism 64 5 Race, Ethnicity and Culture 81 6 Class and Culture 101 7 Gendered Cultures 119 8 Education 139 9 Media: Creating Popular Culture 10 Disintegrations and Reintegrations: Future Directions in the Sociology of Culture 156 172 Bibliography 195 Index 216 v Introduction As we drew up the plan for this book and even more, as we wrote it, we realised that no clearly defined 'sociology of culture' exists. Boundaries between sociological studies of culture and other areas of sociology are often difficult to draw and some of the most important contributions to the study of culture have been made by writers from outside the malestream of sociology. This means that any text in this area must be selective and will reflect the authors' interests and specialisms. Our text is no exception. We have structured the book around what we see as important theoretical debates which inform empirical studies and we have included material not easily available in similar texts. Of necessity, we have been selective in the traditions we highlight, but it is our belief that the theoretical tensions on which we have focused, are encountered in all traditions, albeit in differing disguises. Our selectivity has been guided by the intention to deal with theorists who have explicitly used and developed 'culture' as a theoretical concept and a tool for analysing social processes. Consequently, we have been concerned not with these theorists and theories in themselves, but only as they contribute to the sociological study of culture. An organising theme of the book is the way in which conceptual distinctions are made and theoretical perspectives defined, which then break down as they are refined and debated. For example, as the concept of culture was developed as a theoretical tool researchers sought to distinguish specifically cultural from other aspects of society and to understand the pattern of causal forces between them. The distinction made has often been between culture and social structure. As work has developed, the limitations of this distinction Vll vm Introduction have become apparent and further theoretical debate has ensued. Similarly, cultural beliefs, attitudes and values have been distinguished from knowledge, particularly scientific (and social scientific) knowledge. However, as the impact of culture on what is held to be knowledge in a society has been increasingly appreciated, this distinction has blurred, with consequences which are problematic for the very idea of knowledge. As writers in differing theoretical traditions and perspectives have sought to develop and refine their ways of understanding the complexity of culture, they have borrowed concepts and insights from each other and boundaries between Marxists, Durkheimians, W eberians and others have become clouded. Indeed, the sociology of culture itself is increasingly difficult to distinguish from other disciplinary contributions to the study of culture. In this book, we have held on to a view of sociology as a discipline which seeks to go beyond description and provide explanatory frameworks for social processes. However, we are aware that as sociology has sought to define itself and its subject matter and to develop its research methods, it has engaged in a reflexive dialogue with other disciplines and again boundaries have been blurred. Moreover, the goal of some sociological traditions - that of developing a single overarching explanatory framework encompassing all social processes is increasingly being abandoned as overambitious and even inherently oppressive. Not only Weber's substantive concerns but also his overall view of sociology as essentially incomplete, its questions shifting with shifting value orientations in society, has gained influence as sociologists have focused on issues of modernity and post-modernity. Our theme of the formation, clarification and subsequent breakdown of conceptual boundaries is a simplification, as all themes are likely to be. However, we believe that it is a useful organising principle which has helped us and will help our readers to make sense of an enormously complex field. Among the range of writers, schools of thought and topics which might legitimately be seen as contributing to the sociology of culture but are not covered in this book, are the work of Peter Berger and 'social constructionist' theorists, Schutz and a whole range of symbolic interactionists and ethnomethodologists, including Erving Goffman. Norbert Elias's complex work on the 'civilising process' and the transformation of European society and Introduction 1x culture is missing from our text, as is the work of Anthony Giddens, which appears to be moving to a synthesis of many previous theories of society and culture. A major area we have excluded is that of religion, which reflects, in part, the concentration of contemporary work in Britain on more secular aspects of culture, but ignores the continuing concern with religion in the work of American writers. Similarly, although we have recognised the importance of the anthropological and comparative study of culture, we have placed our greatest emphasis on Britain and America, including the imperialistic nature of British culture and the emphasis on pluralism versus integration in American culture. Other areas which might have been given greater prominence in this text - youth and youth cultures and mass media - are to be covered in separate volumes in this series. The particular character of our 'sociology of culture' has been shaped both by our separate competencies and interests and by our debates concerning their interrelationships. Two of us are sociologists, one of us a literature, culture and communication specialist and one of us a psychologist-cum-social theorist. The form and content of this volume have also been shaped by our considerable collective experience of teaching students. We have attempted to bring together and make accessible both to sociology and other students a range of arguments and theories which are not always seen as interconnected, but which seem to us important aspects of a sociology of culture. The bibliography reflects the eclectic and wide-ranging approach we have taken. We have been mindful of recent developments in the field of 'cultural studies' and sociology and have introduced some exciting contemporary debates. Each of us has been responsible for parts and sections of chapters and for specific tasks for this volume, reflecting our various competencies. Our involvement has been as follows: Rosamund Billington, Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7; Sheelagh Strawbridge, Chapters 2, 8 and 10; Lenore Greensides, Chapters 3, 4 and 5; Annette Fitzsimons Chapters 5, 6 and 9. Rosamund Billington has carried out the overall editing and coordination of the work and Sheelagh Strawbridge much of the clarifying and drawing together of our theoretical and conceptual focus. We take collective responsibility for both the merits and faults of our work. We would like to thank Eric Sigsworth for reading the completed draft typescript and his helpful comments on this. Louis Billington x Introduction also read several chapters in draft and provided invaluable help in exploring and developing the American dimension of our work. We are grateful too, to Dilys Jones at the publishers, for her support and patience, and finally, to Elizabeth Black and Keith Povey for their meticulous copy-editing. ROSAMUND BILLINGTON SHEELAGH STRAWBRIDGE LENORE GREENSIDES ANNETTE FITZSIMONS