Culture. Towards a reformulation of a basic anthropological concept

Journal/Book: Kolner Z Soziol Sozialpsychol. 1996; 48: Postfach 5829, W-6200 Wiesbaden, Germany. Westdeutscher Verlag GmbH. 401.

Abstract: Since a decade, a revival of the traditional ethnological concept of culture can be observed in the social sciences as well as in the larger public. In anthropological discourse, however, the holistic theory of culture has long been abandoned, because of the problems of intra-cultural variation, of power, of cultural change and individual action. In the main part of the article I will develop an understanding of culture as an unstable, open process of negotiating meaning, which leads, ifa consensus can be found, to a stabilization of symbolic systems and corresponding processes of social closure. This reformulation allows to solve much of the problems of the classic concept, as will be shown in the following section, The concluding part discusses the implications that a conflict-oriented concept of culture has for the role of ethnology in the public sphere and in the field of scientific disciplines.

Note: Article A Wimmer, Univ Neuchatel, Schweizer Forum Migrat Studien, Rue Terreaux 1, CH-2001 Neuchatel, Switzerland

Keyword(s): ETHNOGRAPHY; STRATEGIES

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