Theoretical and Methodological Issues in the Study of Culture

Abstract

There is a danger that in retrospect theoretical developments are seen to occur more clearly and less ambiguously than they really do and in attempting to introduce and review such debates we oversimplify. For this reason our discussion of the variety of approaches to the concept of culture has not taken a strictly chronological form. Changes in ideas and theoretical orientations frequently develop in opposition to those current or dominant at the time, but several different theoretical positions may be in use at the same time as the basis of research and academic debate and oppositions are rarely clear-cut. In our discussion of theoretical work we have chosen what appears to us to have been most significant, for the development of later theory and/or in influencing ideas and attitudes to culture more generally: ‘Culture is not a neutral concept; it is historical, specific and ideological’ (Swingewood, 1977, p. 26).