Culture And Economy After The Cultural Turn

There has been a well-documented `cultural turn' in social theory. The cultural turn is a movement beginning in the early 1970s among scholars in the humanities and social sciences to make culture the focus of contemporary debates; it also describes a shift in emphasis toward meaning and away from a positivist epistemology. The cultural turn in the late 20th century is interpreted as referring to either a substantive shift in society or an analytical shift in academia. The former argues that culture plays a more significant role in advanced societies, which fits with the notion of post-modernity as an historical era in which people "emphasises the importance of art and culture for education, moral growth, and social criticism and change. This takes two forms: the `epistemological' case in which culture is seen as universally constitutive of social relations and identities; and the `historical' case in which culture is seen as playing an unprecedented role in constituting social relations and identities in contemporary society. In the years after 2000, a mood of pragmatic reflexivity emerges in cultural studies and sociology alike, in which, despite latent tensions, various balances are struck between culture and economy, theory and method, political purpose and academic professionalism. However, several recent currents of thought and research are undermining the culture and society problematic that has sustained most versions of the sociology-cultural studies encounter. This book inspects the impact of the cultural turn for the social sciences concerning the decline of interest in economic facets of society. It presents a number of studies to the changing relationship between culture and economy, and to the in which the cultural turn has required to understand it. It compiles the issues of political sensibilities and movements, equality and recognition, `cultural management', class, ethnicity and gender, and cultural values.

This fascinating volume offers a critique of recent institutional and cultural turns in heterodox economics and political economy. Using seven case studies as examples, the authors explore how research on sense- and meaning-making can deepen critical s

Traditionally social science treated culture as a peripheral issue, but the last twenty years have witnessed a cultural turn throughout the social sciences. Culture is now at the core of debate. Culture and Economy After the Cultural Turn examines the impact of the cultural turn for the social sciences in relation to the decline of interest in economic aspects of society. It presents a number of responses to the changing relationship between culture and economy, and to the way in which the cultural turn has sought to understand it. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines present differing views oon these matters in relation to issues of political sensibilities and movements, equality and recognition, `cultural manageme

What impact does culture have on state formation and public policy? How do states affect national and local cultures? The contributors to this volume re-examine the sociology of the state and historical processes of state formation in light of developments in cultural analysis.

Phrases such as `corporate culture′, `market culture′ and the `knowledge economy′, have now become familiar clarion calls in the world of work. They are calls that have echoed through organizations and markets. Clearly something is happening to the ways markets and organizations are being represented and intervened in and this signals a need to reassess their very constitution. In particular, the once clean divide that placed the economy, dealt with mainly by economists, on one side, and culture, addressed chiefly by those in anthropology, sociology and the other `cultural sciences′, on the other, can no longer hold. This volume presents the work of an international group of academics from a range of disciplines including sociology, media and cultural studies, social anthropology and geography, all of whom are involved not only in thinking `culture′ into the economy but thinking culture and economy together.

This book explains the "turn to culture" and the lessons to be drawn from this movement. The author also provides an elegant and informative guide to the importance of culture in the postmodern world. A key work in understanding culture.

Introduces undergraduates to the key debates regarding space and culture and the key theoretical arguments which guide cultural geographical work. This book addresses the impact, significance, and characteristics of the 'cultural turn' in contemporary geography. It focuses on the development of the cultural geography subdiscipline and on what has made it a peculiar and unique realm of study. It demonstrates the importance of culture in the development of debates in other subdisciplines within geography and beyond. In line with these previous themes, the significance of space in the production of cultural values and expressions is also developed. Along with its timely examination of the health of the cultural geographical subdiscipline, this book is to be valued for its analysis of the impact of cultural theory on studies elsewhere in geography and of ideas of space and spatiality elsewhere in the social sciences.

. . . the book is excellent in setting out and explaining a fundamental critique of economics one moreover that has been missed by most other current critics of the field. Making this case is an achievement. Hopefully, it will have a greater impact than its author probably expects. Journal of Cultural Economics Economics evolved by perfecting the taking of culture out of its reductionist and virtual world. But culture has recently been reintroduced, both as a sphere of application for an otherwise unchanging methodology and as a weak form of acknowledging that the economic alone is inadequate as the basis even for explaining the economy. This volume is an essential critical starting point for understanding the changing relationship between economics and culture and in offering a more satisfactory and stable union between the two. Ben Fine, University of London, UK Economics, Culture and Social Theory examines how culture has been neglected in economic theorising and considers how economics could benefit by incorporating ideas from social and cultural theory. Orthodox economics has prompted a long line of cultural criticism that goes back to the origins of economic theory and extends to recent debates surrounding postmodernism. William A. Jackson discusses the cultural critique of economics, identifies the main arguments, and assesses their implications. Among the topics covered are relativism and realism, idealism and materialism, agency and structure, hermeneutics, semiotics, and cultural evolution. Drawing from varied literatures, notably social and cultural theory, the book stresses the importance of culture for economic behaviour and looks at the prospects for a renewed and culturally informed economics. The book will be invaluable to heterodox economists and to anyone interested in the links between culture and the economy. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, arguing against the isolation of economics, and will therefore hold wide appeal for social scientists working in related fields, as well as for economists specialising in cultural economics and economic methodology.