Page 73 - Cultural Studies and Political Economy

62 Chapter Two

endeavours that address numerous questions, and consist of many different the-
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oretical and political positions.” In brief, according to the foregoing, cultural
studies is difficult to pin down and hence to analyze or critique.
In this book, however, I propose that cultural studies is not nearly as form-
less or inchoate as these excerpts indicate, that its main fissures are readily
identifiable. The major fissure, I will argue, is between cultural materialism
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and poststructuralism (see figure 2.1). Cultural materialism was how the in-
augurators of British cultural studies envisaged the emerging field as they set
out to understand and describe working class culture as a “full rich life,”
whereas poststructuralist cultural studies, particularly as it developed in the
United States, focuses on the language component—to such an extent it often
addresses little else. This contrast highlights a fundamental difference in on-
tology between these two approaches to cultural studies, a difference that
might be summed up as critical realism vs. radical subjectivity/interpretative
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freedom — a theme developed in several chapters of this book.

Figure 2.1. Typology of Cultural Studies. Cultural Studies ranges from the administra-
tive/celebratory, which does not challenge existing power relations, to critical cultural
studies, which presumes to identify and rectify cultural injustices. Cultural Studies also
ranges from idealist to materialist, the former focusing on language and the latter on
lived practices.