Rethinking Culture

The Social Lineage Account

Bibliographic Data

ID3132095
AuthorsAlan Patten (0000-0002-1414-4705, Princeton University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume105
Issue4
Pages735-749
Publication date2011-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s000305541100030x
OpenAlexW2322858138
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited34

Persuaded by the critique of cultural essentialism, many critics believe that there is no defensible way of identifying distinct cultures, or of distinguishing cultural loss from cultural change, that is compatible with the normative agenda of multiculturalism. This article challenges this widely shared belief by developing a concept of culture that can withstand the critique of essentialism and support the positive claims of multiculturalists. Culture, in the view developed here, is what people share when they have shared subjection to a common formative context. A division of the world, or of particular societies, into distinct cultures is a recognition that distinct processes of socialization operate on different groups of people. Because culture in this view is the precipitate of a common social lineage, the view is called the "social lineage account" of culture

Biology · Context (archaeology · Dominant culture · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Essentialism · Formative assessment · Lineage (genetic · Multiculturalism · Normative · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Gender Studies · Genetics · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education · Religious Education and Schools

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub