Page 114 - Cultural Theory

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••• Giddens and Cultural Analysis •••

that operates through effective and autonomous dialogue in all spheres of life and
that involves, in particular, a ‘democracy of the emotions’ (Giddens, 1994). There is,
of course, nothing inevitable in this, and the achievement of political emancipation
is a contingent outcome of political debate and political conflict.
Thus, Giddens sees any claim that contemporary societies are already postmodern
as premature. The cultural and other changes apparent in contemporary societies are
those already characteristic of post-traditional societies, but developed in a radical
form as the ‘reflexive modernity’ of the late modern epoch. Although he feels it is
possible to chart the contours of a post-modern social order and to see this as a
potential inherent in the emancipatory movements of the late modern period, actual
postmodern structures are still a long way from being established.

Conclusion

Giddens’ cultural analysis, then, is central to his sociology and his politics, despite
his reluctance to use the word culture. I have shown that he holds to two concep-
tions of culture. His concept of structure points to the cultural rules that, I have
argued, should be seen as the socialized capacities and dispositions that constitute
the habitus and that Giddens explores by drawing on Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology.
This conception of culture as structure underpins all the key ideas in his structuration
theory. His analysis of signification and legitimation points to the socio-cultural life-
world within which people live their everyday lives and construct the narratives of
self that are the basis of their sense of self-identity. This conception of culture as life-
world is central to his substantive theory, where he explores the relationship between
systems of political and economic domination, on the one hand, and the cultural
lifeworld, on the other. He traces the contrast between traditional and modern cul-
tural lifeworlds and explores the way in which the modern lifeworld has been radi-
calized in a late modern, but not yet postmodern direction. In pursuing this, Giddens
examines the interplay between material resources and cultural rules, though I have
argued that he fails to adequately theorize this problematic relationship. This issue
underpins the relations between domination and the cultural lifeworld and between
the politics of inequality and the politics of identity. While culture may be a missing
word in Giddens’ sociology, it is, arguably, his central and most important concept.

Notes

1 Some aspects of this chapter draw on the earlier account in Scott (1995: Ch. 9). I am grate-
ful to José Lópe, Rob Stones, and Tim Edwards for their comments on an earlier draft.
2 Thus, Thompson, a writer close to Giddens, holds that ’culture is the pattern of meanings
embodied in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances and meaningful objects of vari-
ous kinds, by virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their
experiences, conceptions and beliefs’ (Thompson, 1990: 132, emphasis removed).

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