Page 30 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

ARCHAEOLOGY

• Reading Ang, I. (1985) Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic
Imagination. London: Metheun.

Anti-essentialism This concept alludes to the idea that words do not have referents in 7
an independent object world that possesses essential or universal qualities. Rather,
all categories of knowledge are discursive constructions that change their meanings
according to time, place and usage. In particular, there can be no truths, subjects or
identities outside of language, which does not itself have stable referents, and thus
there are no stable truths or identities. The ‘objects’ of language are not fixed or
universal things but meaningful descriptions that through social convention come
to be ‘what counts as truth’ (that is, the temporary stabilization of meaning).
Anti-essentialism offers an awareness of the contingent, constructed character of
our beliefs and understandings that lack firm universal foundations. However, this
does not mean that we cannot speak of truth or identity per se. Rather, the anti-
essentialist argument points to both as being cultural productions that are located
in specific times and places rather than being universals of nature. Thus, the
speaking subject is dependent on the prior existence of discursive positions and
truth is made rather than found. For example, since words do not refer to essences,
identity is not a fixed universal ‘thing’ but a description in language that is
malleable so that what it means to be a ‘woman’ or an ‘American’ is not stable but
subject to constant modification.
The argument that social categories do not have universal, essential
characteristics or qualities but are constituted by the way we speak about them is
derived from an anti-representationalist understanding of language. That is,
language does not reflect a pre-existent and external reality of independent objects
but rather constructs meaning from within itself through a series of conceptual and
phonic differences. Thus, the signifier ‘good’ has meaning not because it refers to
a universal quality but by virtue of its relations with other related signifiers, notably
bad, but also righteous, worthy, virtuous etc.
The philosopher Derrida argues that since meaning is generated through the play
of signifiers and not by reference to an independent object world it can never be
fixed. Words carry multiple meanings, including the echoes or traces of other
meanings from other related words in other contexts, so that language is inherently
unstable and meaning constantly slides away. Thus, by différance, the key Derridian
concept, is meant ‘difference and deferral’. In a similar vein, Wittgenstein argued
that the meaning of words is derived not from reference to objects but through use
in specific language-games and social contexts.

Links Différance, essentialism, identity, language-game, poststructuralism, semiotics

Archaeology In the context of cultural studies the idea of archaeology is associated
with the methodology involved in the early works of Foucault. By archaeology he
means the exploration of the specific and determinate historical conditions that
form the grounds on which discourses are created and regulated to define a distinct
field of knowledge/objects. A domain of knowledge requires a particular set of