Cultural turn

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The Cultural turn (German: cultural turn ) describes developments in the humanities and social sciences , with the advent of cultural studies (cultural studies), and the growing influence of cultural sociology related in the second half of the 20th century.

It is about the shift towards an expanded understanding of culture that questions traditional values. The cultural turn essentially involves a turning away from the concept of “culture” as a high culture of the elites and valuable moments towards a popular culture and everyday life. The cultural turn began with Anglo-American scholars. The beginnings are seen in the early 20th century, a high point was the establishment of cultural studies as a discipline around 1960.

development

The early 20th century saw a linguistic turn , mainly caused by the studies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ferdinand de Saussure . They made people aware of the extent to which humans define themselves through their language. The cultural turnaround can be understood as an extension of this development, because it shifts interest from language to any type of communication .

In the social sciences, given identities were called into question by the social constructivism of the 1960s. Thus, the focus shifted from political and economic questions to seemingly unimportant everyday occurrences that convey a cultural "meaning". This includes B. sport as a mass-effective everyday culture that has moved people at all times, but only unfolds its full effect in the 20th century. In the humanities, there was a move away from exhibiting or performing work of art towards everyday cultural practices. In contrast to a concept of culture that is fixated on things, the understanding of culture in cultural studies is based on actions or processes. The distinction between high culture and mass culture (or popular culture) became less important.

Cultural turns

The catchphrase “cultural turn” occasionally summarizes very different and contradicting phenomena, which unite that they all aim to develop new methods of knowledge in cultural studies. They are therefore mostly referred to as “cultural turns”. Doris Bachmann-Medick drafts a “theory of turns” that goes beyond Thomas S. Kuhn's concept of paradigm change by counting among the characteristics of the turn not only the expansion of the object area of ​​research, but also the use of completely new methods. These turns include (but are not uncontroversial):

  • Interpretive turn
  • Performative turn
  • Reflexive (rhetorical, literary) turn
  • Postcolonial turn
  • Translational turn
  • Spatial turn
  • Graphic turn
  • Iconic turn , also pictorial turn
  • Affective turn

criticism

So far, the reasons for the social, not just academic, reorientation of the cultural turn have hardly been investigated. Usually it is itself explained in terms of cultural studies theory; the role of globalization, the growing actual cultural encounters and increasing intercultural discussions up to and including terrorism are ignored. At the same time, the functionalization of the culturalist theories within the framework of an ideology of “ethnopluralism” becomes clear . On the left of the political spectrum there is culturalism in the form of multiculturalism, while the right appears as the guardian of national culture.

literature

  • Frederick Jameson: The Cultural Turn. Selected Writings on the Postmodern. 1983-1998. Verso, London 1998, ISBN 1-85984-876-1 .
  • Doris Bachmann-Medick : Cultural Turns. New orientations in cultural studies. 6th edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-499-55675-3 (revision and English translation: Cultural Turns: New Orientations in the Study of Culture. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, ISBN 978-3-11- 040297-1 ).
  • Georg G. Iggers : History of the 20th Century. A critical overview in an international context. New edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-36149-8 , chapter The cultural and linguistic turn. Pp. 124-127.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Riordan , Arnd Krüger (Ed.): European Cultures in Sport. Examining the Nations and Regions. Intellect, Bristol 2003, ISBN 1-8415-0014-3 .
  2. ↑ Jens-Martin Eriksen, Frederik Stjernfelt: Culture as a political ideology. In: www.perlentaucher.de , October 16, 2010.