Page 30 - Culture and Cultural Studies

AN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL STUDIES 29

language leads us to think of culture, identities and identifications as always a place of
borders and hybridity rather than of fixed stable entities, a view encapsulated in his
use of concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity and liminality.

Reading: Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge.

Yet there remains a value in locating culture in-place in order to be able to say things like
‘this is a valued and meaningful practice in Australian culture’ or that the cultural flows
of the ‘Black Atlantic’ involve musical forms of ‘West African origin’. The duality of culture
lies in its being both ‘in-place’ and of ‘no-place’.

Consider what kind of a place you call ‘home’.

– What feelings do you associate with ‘home’?
– What symbols, practices and emotions give ‘home’ meaning and
significance for you?
Consider the phrase ‘homeland’.
– What are the elements that give this term meaning for you?
– How many of the symbols and practices associated with your
homeland originated from outside of its borders?

How is cultural change possible?

Cultural studies writers have consistently identified the examination of culture, power
and politics as central to the domain. Indeed, cultural studies can be understood as a body
of theory generated by thinkers who regard the production of theoretical knowledge as a
political practice. Many cultural studies writers have wanted to link their work with
political movements. This followed the model of the ‘organic’ intellectuals, who were said
to be the thinking and organizing elements of the counter-hegemonic class and its allies.
However, there is little evidence to suggest that cultural studies writers have ever been
‘organically’ connected with political movements in any significant way. Rather, as Hall
(1992a) has commented, cultural studies intellectuals acted ‘as if’ they were organic intel-
lectuals, or in the hope that one day they could be. Originally cultural studies writers
imagined themselves organically linked to revolutionary class factions. Later, as class
declined as a political vehicle and socialism receded as an immediate goal, New Social
Movements (NSMs) took on the mantle of political agents. However, cultural studies has
not been especially successful in forging links with such movements either.

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