Page 200 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

REPRESENTATION

which, it is argued, is not possible. Though exact translation of languages or cultures
is not feasible we can learn the skills of other languages and so enable dialogue and
the attempt to reach pragmatic agreements.
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Links Constructionism, epistemology, language-game, postmodernism, poststructuralism,
pragmatism, truth

Representation The commonsense meaning of the concept of representation is that
of a set of processes by which signifying practices appear to stand for or depict
another object or practice in the ‘real’ world. Representation is thus an act of
symbolism that mirrors an independent object world. However, for cultural studies
representation does not simply reflect in symbolic form ‘things’ that exist in an
independent object world, rather, representations are constitutive of the meaning
of that which they purport to stand in for. That is, representation does not involve
correspondence between signs and objects but creates the ‘representational effect’
of realism.
The philosophies of language (that form of representation par excellence) that
have most informed cultural studies have suggested that representations are
meaningful as a consequence of being a system of differential signs that generate
significance through difference. That is, meaning is relational and unstable rather
than referential and fixed. Representation endows material objects and social
practices with meaning and intelligibility and in doing so constructs those maps of
meaning that are constitutive of culture. Thus, the investigation of culture has often
been regarded as virtually interchangeable with the exploration of the processes of
representation. While culture is not just a matter of representations but also of
practices and spatial arrangements, it can nevertheless be argued that it is the
process of representation that makes practices meaningful and significant to us.
Since representations are not innocent reflections of the real but are cultural
constructions, they could be otherwise than they appear to us. Here representation
is intrinsically bound up with questions of power through the process of selection
and organization that must inevitably be a part of the formation of
representations. The power of representation lies in its enabling some kinds of
knowledge to exist while excluding other ways of seeing. Consequently, cultural
studies writers often talk about a ‘politics of representation’. When we ask the
question what does it mean to be a certain kind of person – male, female, young,
old, black, white, gay, straight and so forth – we are engaged in a politics of
representation. For example, the identity of being black does not reflect an essential
state of being but rather is one that has to be represented and learned. Hall argues
that a ‘politics of representation’ must register the arbitrariness of signification and
generate a willingness to live with difference. That is, a politics of representation
inquires into the power relations inherent in the representation of ‘blackness’ while
simultaneously deconstructing the very terms of a black–white binary.

Links Discourse, language, language-game, meaning, poststructuralism, pragmatism,
semiotics, truth