Methods of Cultural Studies: Identity, Everyday Life, Cultural Intermediaries

Topic: Methods of Cultural Studies:

Identity, Everyday Life,

Cultural Intermediaries

 Name: Baraiya Saryu D.

Subject: The Cultural Studies (Paper-VIII)

Roll no: 27

Study: MA

Year: Semester – II

Guided By: Dr. D. Baradsir

Submitted To: Department of English

University: MKBU

Introduction:

          

      Cultural Studies is an academic field of critical theory and literary criticism. It was introduced very firstly by British institutes. It was started to take in consideration from 1964. So we can say that it is very new theory in comparison of many other theories. After that it was approved and accepted in world wide. In Western society rise of popular culture is after 1960s. And critics linked development of Cultural Studies with rise of popular culture. And because this is new theory in literary criticism it is still expanding in the field of literature and criticism. Influence of T.V., music, internet and other cultural states popular culture brought among people and chiefly among youth. The tone of this early version of Cultural Studies was set by students of British New Left.  But there are two names, which played most important role in this field and those two names are Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart. They both are from working class background and they dragged their own cultural interpretations and because of it they realized that their culture had no role in the literary studies at any university like Cambridge or Oxford. It was starting of new movement for cultural identity: race based, gay, feminist, and so on. The aim of this movement was to politicize specific identities. The work of Raymond Williams influenced the projects and approaches of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1970s. This approach is purely Marxist approach in nature. It modified theoretical imminent from post structuralism to develop Cultural Studies. So as a result, about Cultural Studies, we can say that Cultural Studies focuses on mass or we can call it popular culture. Culture is produced. Culture is about power. 

          Cultural Studies acclimatize many methods of analysis from various disciplines like, media studies, discourse analysis, cultural anthropology, popular culture studies and audience study. Most of these methods are heavily influenced and informed by the theories. They are also used for political reading of any text or to observe different features of culture. We can include generation gender-, race-, sexuality-related several interpretations as result of observation and close reading of text or any literary work. These interpretations may be false or true but they reveal the repressive or dominating structures of society. All cultural forms are connected to markets, society, patrons, humans and many more. Cultural Studies firmly believes that a person cannot ‘read’ cultural objects only within the aesthetic empire. As an example if we focus on a single novel then we cannot only study just novel but we have to focus on history of that novel, background and even in practicality we have to focus on the publishing industry, its profit, the society of reviewers, the studious field of literary criticism, the politics of awards and the hype and publicity system that ‘sells’ the book. So we can say that we are not just buying a book or a novel but we buy an entire enterprise. As general Cultural Studies is the analysis of a culture’s system of meaning production and consumption. Methods are tools of Cultural Studies that we see in detail.   

Identity:

          In general and literal meaning Identity means a name or a person – the mask or appearance one presents to the world – by which one is known. But Identity has different and contextual meaning as tool of Cultural Studies.

‘The Identity of a person is, for Cultural Studies, dependent upon the roles played by that person, the signs that designate that person and it is constituted through experience, and representation is a significant part of experience.’

It means what a person’s position, function, job and responsibility in society it is known as that person’s Identity as per Cultural Studies. Cultural Studies believes that personal experiences also make the connection between different structures in society. As par it we are not in control of our self or our life but we are in control of structure of society and ideology. We use to think that we are free but experiences make us realize that we are not free representatives but in reality we are victim of ideological regimes and discursive that treats us as consumers alone. Most of the times we have not power of alternatives but we use to live in that type of daydream that we have some power and control within us. These signs are part of discourse. As an example we can say that girls assimilate qualities of the ‘feminine’ because they are brought up in the discourse of femininity.

This is the culture, which creates ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ in children. Their roles in society are decided by society itself.

‘Identity is the consequence of representation and the effect of discourse. And it is based on the location within a system of relationship and discourses.’

          In Cultural Studies Identity is socially produced but its theme is related with agency. In words of critic we can say that Identity is mainly question of agency. But here we have to clarify our vision about agency first that what we can conceder as agency in Cultural Studies? Agency is the capacity and power to mold and determine one’s action or accomplishment and life and existence. Agency is also production of society. An individual’s ability to act or to perform is limited by the context in which he or she lives. According to this main argument some questions can be raise.

¨     Who are the empowered agents in any culture?

¨     Who determines the limits of an individual’s freedom?

¨     What are the consequences of an individual’s action in any culture?

Here we can able to open up the relations between identity, representation and agency. Representation is the generation of meaning and constitutes identity. Identity influences the degree of agency one possesses or not possesses. Agency is therefore the consequence of representation.

          Discourses and representations control an individual and its identity, agency and actions. Discourses are structures of power that produce particular and certain identities. So here need of self analysis. We have to analysis structures of power because that influences images, representation and meaning and these structures finally determine individual lives and actions and it is very crucial for any culture or society to see which class or groups determines the discourses.

ü  Identity is socially constructed or legitimized.

ü  Identity is constructed through representation.

ü  This identity determines the degree of agency we possess in a given social system.

Everyday Life:

         

          Contemporary Cultural Studies gives more focus to Everyday Life and conceder it as very serious meter and even in Everyday Life it focuses on metropolises. It seems like Cultural Studies only interested in metropolitan culture and its life. A metropolis is a site that is multi-layered and disputed. Everyday life is about the practices of the routine. It is mainly about

¨     lifestyle

¨     consumption

¨     social interactions or relations

          The culture of anywhere can reflect in that particular society and social life. That society and social life is constructed by cultural artefacts used by the people, even as the cultural artefacts are themselves produced and consumed by society and social life of people. And if we want to study ‘cultural artefacts’ then it can be only studied through the analysis of everyday life. What is crucial about everyday life is, it is accounts for subjectivity in the people’s responses, and responses and experiences are always subjective because that is fact that the people respond emotionally to things most of the times, and this is a central part of their Identity. Sociological studies often ignored this fact. Here one more thing is that, Everyday life is specific to location and cultures and no one can ignore this truth. As an example we can never compare or assume London’s everyday life after observing Mumbai’s everyday life because they both are totally different in location, atmosphere, culture, food, clothing, public transport, and many basic necessary things. They both have difference in their basic structure.  Cultural artefacts or events must be different for different location. So Cultural Studies is must be conscious about this thing.

         

          Main part of everyday life is experience. Experience is the cornerstone of everyday life or we can say that Experience is everyday life. How a person experienced traffic, food, clothing, social relations, public transport, the sense of communication, the wisdom and sensation of community, entertainment constitute, everyday culture it makes him or her about particular everyday life. Cultural Studies must be analyzing relation between experience of everyday life and reality so it can be shift from experience to reality. Cultural Studies underscore the textual or linguistic aspects of experience.  But experience is expressed through language so how people express, what express, how they speak with others and told their stories about experience. When a person hears to another one, he decodes his language and cultural codes between them. Language and representation are therefore integral to the experience and construction of reality. If experience and everyday life are that much important, then it is important to see how these experiences of everyday life converts into language, image and representation.

          ‘Cultural Studies’ interest in everyday life proceeds from what Raymond Williams (1981) called “lived culture”, where culture is produced through everyday living: the food people eat, the fashions they adopt, the entertainment they prefer or the festivals they celebrate.’

So Cultural Studies believes that people leading their everyday life and produce their culture themselves. Culture is the end result of experiences and responses. And Cultural Studies tries to investigate this process of making culture. This process is linked to relationship of power. But also think of two questions particularly.

¨     Who has access to specific forms of culture in everyday life?

¨     What are the legitimate forms of cultural acceptable in everyday life?

Lifestyle and utilization of culture artefacts in everyday life go together as per Cultural Studies. There is a certain ideology in every person who works as per its conditioning. This ideology emphasizes freedom, pleasure and entertainment over duties and work. So, cultural studies consumerism is itself a new form of identity.

          Everyday life is a site of struggle over meaning. So meaning are much superior and in power in everyday life. If we see it commonly then we can easily recognized that a common people must be put stress on particular meaning of a work. So we can find many people who use to wear only khadi because it has its patriotic meaning and it can be related with our national father Mahatma Gandhi. So khadi has particular and certain meaning for a person and so he or she accepts it in their life and so it becomes a culture and takes place in Cultural studies. Everyday life generates multiple identities. Cultural Studies sees identity in metropolises as increasingly linked to consumption and life style. And now in 21^st century, in metropolitan social, economical life is getting faster and global in virtual world. Today, metropolitan everyday life across the world is simultaneously local and global so no more pure local and global life differentiate and so, Everyday life is become hybrid of the local and the global. Even where local ethnic chic is marketed it is a part of a global consumer market. In everyday life we have to play so many roles in different situation and in different context. So because of it we can say that everyday life gives us multiple identities because identity means a role played by a person in his or her life. So how many roles we played in our life like friend, philosopher, guide, brother, sister, teacher, student and etc…. that many identities we get in our life. But here another question is this:

What does a hybrid everyday life mean:

¨     It means our experience are now restricted to one race or culture.

¨     Our identities are dawn from multiple, global sources.

¨     Our values are themselves inspired by global cultures.

          The global cultural artefact is indigenized, given a local flavor with the help of everyday life. So we can say that it becomes very simple truth for Cultural Studies. We can never say that everyday life is dominated or taken over by global culture. Everyday life means re-invention of global cultural artefacts. . The consumer is not only passive receiver of global life and global culture. He or she can modify what he or she receives to suit his or her own purpose and engaged with the global cultures in a native way, often productively re-doing the global to fit in with an Indian cultural system.

¨     Global products are actively transformed and given new meaning by the local audience or consumer.

¨     The Consumer has a degree of power to choose the product and re-inscribe its meaning.

¨     The individual is engaged in a project of self-realization and identity creation through the adoption of a lifestyle.

¨     The consumer asserts agency in this process.

Cultural Intermediaries:

          Pierre Bourdieu was the French cultural theorist and he was the person, who introduced this term ‘Cultural Intermediaries’. He uses this term in his book on the sociology of taste and distinction. Cultural intermediaries are those that mediate between the production of cultural product or event and its consumers (customers).

          Marketing companies, advertising agencies, magazines and etc... are best examples of ‘Cultural intermediaries’. They built a particular image for a particular product or a film and suggest certain values of it and sell that product to the consumer. They built a link between the production and consumption of culture, and so a link between culture and the economy. These intermediaries are take place between these two departments.

There function is representation: presenting the cultural object in such a way that a desire for the same is created in the consumer, who then buys the object.

          Let us see with example of Hindi films. On the production side there are the film-making company, director, producer, financier and the stars. Then on other side, means on the consumption side there are audience. But here is a question that does the audience come to the film immediately means without any intermediaries?? And very simple and certain answer we can get is ‘NO’.  In now days no one is going to watch a single movie without some knowledge about it in mind. So from where this knowledge they get? And the answer is from intermediaries. And this is happens in metropolitan for sure. Various TV channels shows ‘the making….’ programs. Many papers and magazines cover initial stories about that particular movie and the star. Channel like ETC shows review on the first day of movie. Before release there is usually the film’s music that arrives in market and widely publicized. Music CDs brings more promotional material. Film stars coming in different serials and reality shows for promotion of their movie and during that time they talk about upcoming movie and forth coming movie, too. So what these activities done? Can it connect us with film or its production? What they get from these activities? They achieve a link.

So we can say that Advertising and marketing are key moments in the process where culture products are sold. So, Cultural intermediaries are services professions that enable the cultural product to be sold-metaphorically and literally-to the consumer.

‘The creation of “symbolic” value – that is representations – is as central to a cultural process as production and consumption.’

        It can be possible that cultural intermediaries have no or little knowledge of the actual processes of cultural production. As an example a column writer of film magazine does not need to know about production process, casting process or same kind of other process about the film. As it is the film’s advertising company does not need to know financial, social, structural background of the film. Their work is to sell that movie and for which they prepared promotional material and trailers. That is enough for them. That is the same work done by cultural intermediaries.  They have very little to do with production of product. They just have to sell the product and that is the main and real work of culture intermediaries. They are experts to the production and consumption of culture and though their contribution is central to the production and consumption of culture. We can consider fan clubs in cultural intermediaries, too. They also are doing the same. They also are marketing their favorite star’s film. They generate interest among their group about some particular, forthcoming film. They performed ‘extra-cultural’ for their favorites. They create an ‘aura’ around a star and help to sell a film. And of course, they also double as consumers when they go in masses to watch ‘their’ star’s film.

          Cultural Studies is interested in the role played by such makers of representation that generates interests and makers for cultural products. The cultural intermediaries not only make incoming for production side, but also for itself. There is thus an economy of these two sides in-between them. Cultural Studies asks about it that:

¨        What exactly is the relationship of the cultural intermediaries to the product being sold?

¨        Does the intermediary really influence audience reaction?

At last main points about cultural intermediaries are:

ü  Cultural intermediaries generate an interest in the cultural product.

ü  They may have an influence on consumption patterns.

ü  They mediate between the production and consumption of cultural product.

Conclusion:

       Thus, Cultural studies does interpretations of signs and uses many methods as tools. Here I try to discuss three tools or we can call it three methods of Cultural Studies. These three methods Identity, Everyday life, and Cultural Intermediaries plays vital role in study of Cultural Studies. What a person’s role in society and what a role person played in society that we studied in Identity. What kind of life a person live that we studied in Everyday life. Core part of that pint is every location’s everyday life is different from each other and that everyday life is the only culture of that particular place then we can say that with constructing his or her personal life a person can construct his or her own culture. And so on a common people is a consumer and what link the people with literary product that is known as Cultural Intermediaries.  Cultural Intermediaries are the only link for consumer and product. They don't have any connection with production of any particular or any product.    

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