British Cultural Studies

Aleena Abraham

         Culture is not a simple term as it seems to be. There are a number of definitions to culture. Culture can be seen as a way of life including activities like brushing teeth to something like following table manners.  Cultural Studies is a discipline that analyses culture theoretically, politically and empirically. It was developed by British Academics in the late 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. Cultural Studies can be interdisciplinary and antidisciplinary. Studying or examining culture as a way of life is the key concern for Cultural studies practitioners.

        A critical development in the field of Cultural studies was made when Richard Hoggart used the term in 1964. A British style of cultural studies was developed in the 1960’s and 70’s. It was articulated and practiced at Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (BCCCS). The aim of British Cultural Studies was to distinguish ‘popular’ culture from ‘mass’ or ‘consumerist’ culture. A distinction was needed because British and European traditions privileged high art over popular or low art.

     The pioneers of Cultural studies were three working class intellectuals namely Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and E.P Thomson. A number of French intellectuals including Roland Barthes, Claude Levi Strauss, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel de Certeau, pioneered structuralist and post structuralist methodologies for investigating culture. British cultural studies made major contributions to literary and historical theory, ethnography of urban sub-cultures, popular culture and media studies, women’s studies, ethnic studies etc.

      Marxism puts culture in the superstructure. But according to Marxists the main human activity takes place in the base. So if culture is put in the superstructure it lacks activity but in reality culture is highly dependent on human activity. This gives rise to a contradiction. Base shapes superstructure and superstructure maintains the base and legitimizes it. Media presents the dominant or hegemonic culture as the common idea by making it a commonsensical idea. Most of the times it is the culture of the dominant class that is considered to be “cultured” or acceptable. In that way culture is related to civilization as Raymond Williams has portrayed in his book Marxism and Literature. Earlier times culture dealt with animal culture or tissue culture but later it became the order of the society.

        Cultural studies have no strict boundary and as a result everything that is real can be seen as culture. Culture can be gender biased, minority biased, economically biased, class biased, ageist etc. Cultural studies have no specific methodology. British Cultural Studies developed during the Post War years. The idea begins with Raymond Williams. Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (1869) says that the society is heading towards anarchy and only culture can save it.

     A lot of factors affected the development of British Cultural Studies. Educational facilities were provided in Britain after the Second World War and educating the adults was seen as a means of reconstructing the society. Secondly mass produced American culture displaced the traditional popular culture. Thirdly the ideas of French thinkers like Roland Barthes, Althusser and Foucault gave new way to the question of culture. Finally the New Left revived the Marxist Critique of capitalism.

         Richard Hoggart was one of the earlier analyzers of British Industrial working class culture. In “The Uses of Literacy” (1958) Hoggart explores the relation between working class culture and folk culture. The Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies grew out of a shift in the mood and direction of British social, aesthetic and cultural inquiry.

       Raymond Williams’ “Culture and Society” (1958) is one of the most important books in the development of British Cultural Studies. He tries to understand culture by studying the relationship between literature and politics. His notion of culture is largely untheorised. He says that “Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language”.

       F. R Leavis in his Great Tradition says that culture is not a leisure activity. Only Great Tradition can form mature individuals. It is challenged by the tastes of the masses. Cultural capital in a way means power. Williams’ conclusion to culture shows his contrary attitude towards inclusiveness on one side and intellectual and social leadership on the other side.

      E. P Thomson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1980) represents a critical link between cultural theory and politics. He seeks to explain cultural formation in terms of the progress of capitalism. He rejects the notion of class domination. To him the working class is not merely determined but is determining. He completely rejected the Leavisite idea of high and low art. For Thompson everything contributes to the building and legitimation of culture. During the 1970’s he was engaged in a debate concerning the relative value of culturalism and structuralism.

       Stuart Hall asserts that British Cultural Studies is implicated in the politics and postulates of Marxism. To him Cultural Studies exists by working on Marxism, working against Marxism, working to develop Marxism etc. The theoretical interests of Marxism and Cultural Studies never matched because Marxism fails to address the key concerns of Cultural Studies. Hall notes Marxism remains decidedly Eurocentric in its move from structuralist to Gramscian cultural analysis. His idea of culture includes all that is mediated through media, includes the dichotomy of high and low art, includes the practices of the middle and working class, and the politics of all classes and social groups in the society.

     Graeme Turner sees culture as an interdisciplinary field and not as a constellation of disciplines. But culture cannot be seen just as an interdisciplinary field as it is also a set of concepts that problematises the methods of traditional humanities. Every reality can be seen as a culture because a meaning making process is involved in every reality. British Cultural Studies was the first to address the problem of meaning making and the need to understand human experiences known as culture.

       Catherine Belsey in an interview with Paul Bowman talks about a shift from Cultural Studies to Cultural Criticism. Cultural Criticism includes a wider range of materials than Cultural Studies. The strength of Cultural Studies was its popularizing impulse but now it is affected by the disadvantage of populism. She was concerned about the institutionalisation of Cultural Studies. Cultural criticism is the study of meanings. It breaks down the limitations of Cultural Studies and embraces Cultural History. As she suggests “No discipline is forever”. Every new discipline is established to solve the limitations of the already existing disciplines. It is a continuing process and as a result of this every moment a new disclipline is born to cope up with the limitations of the already existing ones.

 Bibliography

Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies An Introduction. Routledge Publishers, n.d.

Oswell, David. Culture and Society- An Introduction to Cultural Studies. California: Sage Publications, 2006.

Lewis, Jeff. Cultural Studies: The Basics. New Delhi: SAGE publications , 2008.

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and practice. 3rd Edition. New Delhi: SAGE publications, 2008.