Page 231 - Cultural Studies Dictionary
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DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL STUDIES
into culture as sensual lived experience. On a theoretical level, Willis has been
influenced by both Marxism and the work of Raymond Williams and as such has
been connected to the ideas of ‘culturalism’. In his most famous work, Learning to
208 Labour, Willis explored, via an ethnographic study of ‘The Lads’, the way that a
group of working class boys reproduce their subordinate class position. Some of his
later writing examines the creative symbolic practices of young people at the
moment of consumption in the context of the creation of a common culture.
• Associated concepts Common culture, consumption, experience, homology,
popular culture, subculture, youth culture.
• Tradition(s) Culturalism, cultural studies, ethnography, Marxism.
• Reading Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour. Farnborough: Saxon House.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889–1951) The Austrian-born philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein did much of his work at Cambridge University (UK). He is one of the
pillars of post-Enlightenment philosophy whose linguistic anti-essentialism and
holism have been a significant ‘behind-the-scenes’ influence on constructionism in
general and postmodernism, poststructuralism and pragmatism in particular. For
Wittgenstein, ‘language’ is a context-specific tool used by human beings where the
meaning of the word is forged in use. Wittgenstein argued that words do not derive
meaning from the essential characteristics of an independent referent but rather
meaning arises in the context of a language-game. While language-games are rule-
bound activities, those rules are not abstract components of language (as in
structuralism) but rather they are constitutive rules. That is, rules which are such by
dint of their enactment in social practice.
• Associated concepts Anti-essentialism, holism, language, language-game,
meaning, truth.
• Tradition(s) Ordinary language philosopher who has been influential on
constructionism, postmodernism, poststructuralism and pragmatism.
• Reading Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
Women’s movement The idea of the women’s movement and the concept of
feminism are virtually interchangeable. However, we may make the gentle
distinction that while feminism is marked by strong theoretical inclinations, the
idea of the women’s movement designates a concern with political strategies by
which to intervene in social life in pursuit of the interests of women. It also registers
the material gains and losses of the movement for women’s emancipation.
It is commonplace if somewhat crudely schematic to discuss the women’s
movement in terms of three waves. The first wave of feminism is constituted by the
nineteenth-century suffragette movement that sought after political and property
rights for women, including the right to participate within the democratic process.
The second wave of the women’s movement began in the 1960s and engaged with
a wider set of social and cultural issues, including male violence, the representation
of women, the exclusion of women from positions of economic and political power,
equality of pay, abortion rights and so forth. A good deal of emphasis was put upon