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SYMBOL
true for women. Activism by women was a major contributor to
the rise of identity politics.
One would want to add that a sixth decentring has occurred via post-
colonial and ‘subaltern’ studies, which have worked to decentre the
Western, universal subject and to introduce the notion of the hybrid,
multicultural, ‘subaltern’ and colonised subject (see Gilroy, 1987,
1993).
See also: Identity politics
Further reading: Hall (1994); Miller (1993)
SYMBOL
Symbols may be simple non-verbal signs: something visual standing for
something other than itself, as in the way a road sign may use a
simplified image to symbolise a bicycle, roadworks and the like. But
symbols can also be much more complex artefacts and mentifacts,
operating at the most elaborate levels of literary and visual culture. In
communication and cultural studies, the study of symbols is used in the
following ways.
. In the theoryof semiotics developed by C. S. Peirce, the term symbol is
used instead of the word sign. Using the term symbol he argues there
is no relationship between the signifier and the signified (see Leeds-
Hurwitz, 1993). What meaning is derived is purely reliant on shared
cultural connotations. This is most explicit in the use of national flags,
where what the object itself signifies is symbolic rather than natural.
Language too acts symbolically, as when a collection of letters come
to represent an agreed-upon meaning.
. In psychoanalysis (in dialogue with earlier theories of symbolism in
art and literature), symbolism refers to the act of representing
something that has been repressed by the unconscious. For Freud,
matters of sexuality, birth and maternal relationships are all aspects
of the self that are repressed. Psychoanalytic theory posits the
‘return of the repressed’ through symbols in representation. Sci-fi
horror films, for example, replete with hideous monsters, dark
corridors and launching spacecrafts represent a form of symbolism
for the unspoken and unspeakable (see Creed, 1990).
. The sociological theory of ‘symbolic interactionism’ argues that
through symbolic communication we come to know ourselves and
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