The Concept(s) of Culture

The term culture in its early use in English was associated with cultivation and also with religious worship, hence the word ‘cult’. From the 16^th to the 19^th century, the term was widely applied to the improvement of the individual human mind and personal manners through learning. The term was then also used to denote the development of society as a whole. Edward Burnet Tylor in his Primitive Culture defined “Culture … is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities and habits acquired by ma as a member of society.” This implies the complexity of the term. It was further attested by Raymond Williams when he wrote “Culture as one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” He held that culture projects the whole way of life. In the last quarter of the 19^th century as a discipline “Cultural Studies” emerged with Richard Hoggard, the founder of the Birmingham Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies.

WILLIAM H SEWELL JR. AND HIS ANALYSIS ON 
THE CONCEPT(S) OF CULTURE

William H Sewell Jr. in his book Logics of History, Chapter five entitled ‘The Concept(s) of Culture’, made a detailed analysis of concepts of culture in contemporary academic discourse. Sewell argued that in one meaning, culture is a theoretically defined category or aspect of social life that must be abstracted out from the complex reality of human existence. Culture in this sense is always contrasted to some other equally abstract aspect or category of social life that is not culture, such as economy, politics, or biology. Culture in this sense-as an abstract analytical category-only takes the singular. Whenever we speak of "cultures," we have moved to the second fundamental meaning. In that second meaning, culture stands for a concrete and bounded world of beliefs and practices. Culture in this sense is commonly assumed to belong to or to be isomorphic with a "society" or with some dearly identifiable sub-societal group, eg., Indian Culture or middle-class culture. The contrast in this usage is not between culture and not-culture but between one culture and another culture.

Culture as a Category of Social Life

Culture as a category of social life has itself been conceptualized in a number of different ways. Sewell presented these concepts as follows:

Culture as learned behaviour: Culture in this sense is the whole body of practices, beliefs, institutions, customs, habits, myths, and so on built up by humans and passed on from generation to generation. In this usage, culture is contrasted to nature: its possession is what distinguishes LIS from other animals.

Culture as all institutional sphere devoted to the making of meaning: This conception of culture is based on the assumption that social formations are composed of clusters of institutions devoted to specialized activities. Culture is the sphere devoted specifically to the production, circulation, and use of meanings. The cultural sphere may in turn be broken down into the sub-spheres of which it is composed: say, of art, music, theatre, fashion, literature, religion, media, and education. The study of culture, if culture is defined in this way, is the study of the activities that take place within these institutionally defined spheres and of the meanings produced in them. This conception of culture is particularly prominent in the discourses of sociology and cultural studies.

Culture as creativity or agency: This usage of culture has emerged with the Marxist materialistic determinism. The scholars working within these traditions have carved out a conception of culture as a realm of creativity that escapes from the otherwise pervasive determination of social action by economic or social structures.

Culture as a system of symbols and meanings: This has been the dominant concept of culture in American anthropology since the 1960s. It was made famous above all by Clifford Geertz, who used the term "cultural system" and elaborated by David Schneider.  It was contrasted to the "social system," which was a system of norms and institutions. Geertz and Schneider distinguished the cultural system from the social system. Culture as a system of symbols and meanings further created the studies like semiotics, structuralism and postmodernism.

Culture as practice: This concept is developed as a reaction against the culture as a system of symbols and meanings. This idea viewed “culture as a tool kit”. Here, culture is a sphere of practical activity shot through by wilful action, power relations, struggle, contradiction and change.

Culture as System and Practice

This concept considers culture as a dialectic of system and practice. System and practice are complementary concepts. To engage in cultural practice means to utilize existing cultural symbols. To the employment of a symbol can make a practice. Hence, practice implies a system. System and practice contribute to an indissoluble duality or dialectic.

The Autonomy of Culture

The cultural dimension of practice is autonomous from other dimensions of practice in two senses. First, culture has a semiotic structuring principle that is different from the political, economic, or geographical structuring principles that also inform practice. Second, the cultural dimension is also autonomous in the sense that the meanings that make it are shaped and reshaped by a multitude of other contexts.

Cultures as Distinct Worlds of Meaning

Cultures are contradictory: Cultural worlds are commonly beset with internal contradictions.

Cultures are loosely integrated: Societies are composed of verities of cultural activities. Hence, the Integration of cultures was a difficult task and it depends on its nature.

Cultures are contested: The conflicts of race, class, gender, etc. are frequent in the cultural sphere. Thus it is a sphere of conflict and resistance.

Cultures are subject to constant change: In complex and dynamic societies, cultures are quite changeable.

Cultures are weakly bounded: Cultural transactions between societies are a common feature. Thus the boundaries of cultures are weakly organised.

Conclusion

According to Sewell, many cultural practices are concentrated in and around powerful institutions like religion, media, state, etc. Cultures give the impressions of identity, struggle, resistance, and movements. Cultures are used as instruments for societal development.