Page 13 - Culture and Cultural Studies

12 CULTURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Discourse Representation
Discursive formation Signifying practices
Hegemony (the) Social
Identity Social formation
Ideology Subjectivity
Language-game Texts
Political economy

Cultural studies writers differ about how to deploy these concepts and about
which are the most significant.

THE INTELLECTUAL STRANDS OF CULTURAL STUDIES

The concepts we have explored are drawn from a range of theoretical and methodolog-
ical paradigms. The most influential theories within cultural studies have been: Marxism,
culturalism, structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis and the politics of differ-
ence (under which heading, for the sake of convenience, I include feminism, theories of
race, ethnicity and postcolonialism). The purpose of sketching the basic tenets of these
theoretical domains is to provide a signpost to thinking in the field. However, each is
developed in more detail throughout the text and there is no one place in the book to
look for theory. Theory permeates all levels of cultural studies and needs to be connected
to specific issues and debates rather than explored solely in the abstract.

Marxism and the centrality of class
Marxism is, above all, a form of historical materialism. It stresses the historical specificity
of human affairs and the changeable character of social formations whose core features
are located in the material conditions of existence. Marx (1961) argued that the first pri-
ority of human beings is the production of their means of subsistence through labour. As
humans produce food, clothes and all manner of tools with which to shape their environ-
ment, so they also create themselves. Thus labour, and the forms of social organization
that material production takes, a mode of production, are central categories of Marxism.
The organization of a mode of production is not simply a matter of co-ordinating
objects; rather, it is inherently tied up with relations between people. These relation-
ships, while social, that is, co-operative and co-ordinated, are also matters of power and
conflict. Indeed, Marxists regard social antagonisms as being the motor of historical
change. Further, given the priority accorded to production, other aspects of human

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