Kulturbegreppet och diskursanalysen

Tankar om kulturbegreppets möjliga position i diskursteorin

Abstract

About three decades ago it was commonplace within cultural research to define culture in terms of order. In the wake of theoretical and ideological influences of post structuralism and neo-liberalism, this definition became increasingly contested, and became regarded as problematic, as it was argued not to meet the needs of contemporary dominant debates concerning individual differences, mobility and instability. Attempts to adapt the theorization of culture were made by launches of designations such as culture as process, culture building and cultural complexity, but without managing to redeem its difficulty to interact smoothly with current theoretical discourses. In relation to this philosophical and theoretical change, discourse theory and discourse analysis became successively influential in social and cultural research, and within these theories the concept of culture was given no scientific value. If, despite this, it is only mentioned in terms of its negative and difference-making social impact. This article discusses, however, the somewhat bold question if whether a conceptualization of culture, precisely in the sense of order, could indeed have an essential theoretical role to play in the context of post-Marxist discourse theory. This discussion is particularly justified due to the fact that the question of permanence is generally considered under-theorized in discourse theory. After a trial against the related concept of objectivity, the answer to the question is preliminarily affirmative.