The Culture Concept as Theory, in Context

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2215401
AutoresJames P Boggs, James Boggs (Max Planck Society, autor de correspondencia)
Año2004
Volumen45
Número2
Páginas187-209
Fecha de publicación2004-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/381048
OpenAlexW2130418861
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas17
Referencias citadas91

This essay presents anthropologys culture concept (hereafter culture) asformally, precisely, definablya scientific theory. Representing new knowledge, an emerging theory challenges, reconfigures, existing knowledge. It has a starting place, a context. To advance anthropologys idea of culture as theory is to place it in time, in relation to ideas it reconfigures or replaces. So situated, culture is seen to replace the existing theory of human order, inherited from the Enlightenment, that underlies the doctrine political theorists call liberalism: as theory, culture supplants no less than the currently dominant social/political theory of Western modernity. In this light the present essay reconsiders the contention, with its attending sense of malaise, that is now swirling around the idea of culture in anthropology. While critics blame cultures difficulties on its inherent flaws, this essay suggests that its troubles follow first from its very success as theory. Significantly disturbing the conceptual groundwork for the liberal polity, culture sparks reactions within that polity aimed in part against its credentials as theory. Anthropologys discovery of culture thus places ititself a discipline within the liberal tradition, an institution within the liberal polityin a position in relation to current affairs that is at once difficult, paradoxical, and strategic

Context (archaeology · Doctrine · Enlightenment · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Liberalism · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Polity · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy