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8/13/2019 Nada vob-oki-Theoretical Syncretism in Understanding Cultures
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Theoretical Syncretism in
Understanding Cultures
Nada vob-okiInstitute for International Relations
Zagreb
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Cultural studies, cultural economies,
culture today
Terry Eagleton
AFTER THEORY(2003)
Literary Theory (1983; 1996)
The Idea of Culture(2000)
Chris Anderson
THE LONG TAIL
How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand (2006)
Sarah A. Radcliffe, Ed.
CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD.
Geographies, actors and paradigms (2006)
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Terry Eagleton: After Theory
Cultural theory (a critical self-reflection on
humanities and arts), essentially linked to colonial
and post-colonial studies, follows modernism and
post-modernism and raises up until the 1980s andthe end of 20th century
The great days of theories of modernity and post-
modernity have passed. However, there is no
possibility to go back to thepre-theoryinnocence.
What is in front of us?
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Note: Modernity, post-modernity;
modernism and post-modernism Modernity; modernism: mindset that emerged during the
Enlightment. Science explains almost everything, and modernsociety (industrial and capitalist society) is the consequence ofthe growth of rationality and reason. Growth, freedom,democracy, industrial and scientific development (roughly mid -
end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century)
Post-modernity; post-modernism: no objective scientific truth;relativisation of values (Lyotard: Incredulity towards our culturalmeta-narratives); major meta-narrative is individual difference
theory; complex diversity, pluralism(Jameson: post-modernityrelated to the late capitalism, post-colonialism, alternative viewsof progress (e.g. socialism), post-structuralism, discoursetheories, etc.
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Terry Eagleton: After Theory
The policy of forgetfulness; impossibility toconceptualize the present; no expectations from thefuture.
The policy of creativity.
National cultures have dissolved into a number ofchaotic sub-cultures
Sub-cultures correspond to global cultures. New
sensitivity. Technology, virtuality and globality.
What is culture today?
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Terry Eagleton: After Theory
Today, there is de-specialization, fullopenness of cultural spaces, intenseintercultural communication, and full merging
of creativity and production. All borders fadeaway. Theoretical views are general; culturesare specific, and the correspondence doesnot exist.
Rationality and conceptualization of cultureare not possible any longer; absolute truthabout culture does not exist
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Terry Eagleton: After Theory
Culture as: civility, community, imaginative
creation, spiritual values, moral values, forum
to raise the key existential issues; passions,
experiences, mystery and knowledge;diversity; tradition and modernity; hedonism,
adaptability; universal truth; identity, plurality
of meanings Cultural reconstruction as a possibility
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
The Long Tail
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
We are consumed by hitsmaking them, choosingthem, talking about them, and following their riseand fall.
We define our age by our celebrities and mass
market productsthey are the connective tissue ofour common experience. Now, the markets fragment into countless niches Choices are much diversified A market of multitudes has appeared: mass market
has been turned into a mass of niches. There is no replacement: everything exists at the
same time.
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
Creativity: Its hard to tell when the professionalsleave off and the amateurs take over
Customers: massexclusivity, masscustomization; peer-to-peer distribution (P2P) and
low cost marketing; millions of regular people arethe new taste makers
Merging of media; merging of time periods; thetyranny of locality fades away
The exposure culturereflects the philosophy of the
Web, in which getting noticed is everything. Shift from passive consumers to active producers:
from consumerism to participative producerism
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
The emerging digital entertainment economy
We have been trained to see the world through ahit-colored lens
Who killed the hit album? Piracy. Technology.
Micro-hits: a singular star is joined by a swarm ofmicro-hits.
However, costly productions still need hits (Hollywood
films). this has leaked outside of the Hollywoodboardrooms and into our national culture.
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
Probabilistic knowledge
Wikipedia
our mental software has evolved fasterthan our hardware (neural wiring)
the intelligence is simply emergent.
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
Three forces of the Long Tail Culture
1. Democratizing production
2. Democratizing distribution
3. Smart choices (information easily
accessible). In the world of infinite choice,contextnot contentis king.
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
Culture fragments into a million of tiny microcultures (creation ofmicro stars and micro hits)
Infinite choice (the Long Tail is about abundance); filtering ofinformation enables the choice and increases the importance ofcontext. However, too much choice creates the problem: it is
hard to choose New taste: Millions of regular people are the new tastemakers
New types of production (co-productions)
New types of distribution (unlimited offer)
New types of consumption (personal individualized choice)
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
Fractal structure: the Long Tail is made of
many mini-tails (genres and sub-genres)
The Long Tail of Time: todays hit is
tomorrows niche (or vice versa?) From or culture to and culture
The rise of parallel cultures (millions of micro
cultures discernible through shared interests):urban tribes; urban dances, etc.
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
Raymond Williams: There are no masses; there areonly ways of seeing people as masses (Culture andSociety)
Ego-casting: individual and extremely narrow pursuit
of ones personal taste (In thrall of our own littletechnologically constructed worlds, we are,ironically, finding it increasingly difficult to appreciategenuine individuality, Christine Rosen)
Variety of pop cultures.
Affinity based and massively parallel culture: Wewill still share our culture with others, but not witheveryone.
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Chris Anderson: Long Tail World
The question tomorrow will not be
whether more choice is better, but
rather what do we really want?
Comment: We are back to the identity issues.
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S. A. Radcliffe:CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN A
GLOBALIZING WORLD
What is culture?
Debates across disciplines
New paradigms, recent concepts
even one reason for taking culture seriouslycovers a number of different political,
analytical, or ideological perspectives.
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S. A. Radcliffe:CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN A
GLOBALIZING WORLD
Anthropological perspectives:
- cultural differences (colonial and post-colonial studies)
- structured cultural differences (ethnicity, nationality, trans-
nationality)- WesternOrientalOverseas perspectives Sociological perspectives:
- social relationships, social cohesion
- class, racial formations, gender formations, age formations
- security, democratic openness, accountability
- communities, societies; regions, states; rural settings, urbansettings
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S. A. Radcliffe:CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN A
GLOBALIZING WORLD
Economic perspectives:
- varieties of capitalism across the world, across
historical time
- social capital (human resources, education,knowledge)
- cultural capital (cultural values, cultural heritage)
- cultural entrepreneurship within wider socioeconomic
transformations
- 2 dimensions of culture and economics : cultural
embeddedness of economies; cultural economy
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S. A. Radcliffe:CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN A
GLOBALIZING WORLD
In summary, culture comprises the material products, patterns ofsocial relations, and structures of feelings produced by multipleactors, who are differentially positioned in power relations,political economies and social reproduction. Viewing culture inthis way recognizes the contested nature of cultural meanings,
artifacts and social relations that are coproduced by diverseactors in their ongoing daily and generational interactions. Thespatial and social limits of culture are thus dynamic, reflecting theways in which social interactions are rarely bounded, while thefeelings in which meanings and social relations are produced gobeyond the local or indeed national arena.Sarah. A. Radcliffe: Culture in development thinking:geographies, actors and paradigms, in Culture andDevelopment in a Globalizing World, Routledge, 2006.
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Understanding cultures
Culture:
- basically (re)defined through identities
- cross-disciplinary
- shaped by consumption (preceded by
production and distribution)
- reflects individual choices
- probabilistic value systems