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Notes
Not every difference should be elevated to a debate. Some of these differences are simply differences in the history of ideas, such as the historical antecedents of the culture concept in sociology compared to anthropology. Other axes of difference — structure/agency, interpretation/explanation — do remain constitutive of the field. But cultural sociology offers mid-range theories which encompass or transcend the more abstract oppositions, or at least offers better ways to turn them into empirical questions than existed prior to the re-establishment of the subfield See, for example, Spillman (1995) on consensus/conflict and structure/agency and Spillman (2004; 2014) on interpretation/explanation.
Especially for more advanced students, including post-graduate students, “familiarity with the comparisons and contrasts” of theoretical assumptions and debates in cultural sociology is critical (115). As I note later, What Is Cultural Sociology? offers a tabulation of key and recurring faultlines in the field (113) and offers many “leads to enable readers to delve deeper by pursuing theoretical discussions and debates influencing many of the authors here” (111). Perhaps an online bibliographic resource on key theoretical debates would be worthwhile. My own preference for teaching undergraduates from original research has long been supported by my anthology (Spillman, 2002). Most of the selections in that have aged quite well, and still ignite students’ interest, but I often wish it could be updated. What Is Cultural Sociology? cannot replace a curated set of selections from original research and theory.
I argue that “all cultural sociology shares a central focus on processes of meaning-making.” Taylor fears that in using the term “processes,” I seem to be committing the field to an emphasis on pragmatic action, rather than autonomous forms beyond any given action (or, better, interaction). In fact, I adopt the term because it allows coherence within complexity, and refuses the reified, overly abstract, unitary idea of “Culture” which has been challenged by all branches of cultural sociology. In any case, and as she later recognizes, I include structural hermeneutics and other analysis of cultural forms as important ways of understanding “processes of meaning-making.”.
So despite her critique, the book implicitly takes Taylor’s position on cognitive neuroscience vs. cultural analysis. For an alternative perspective, see Cerulo, Leschziner and Shepherd (2021).
Taylor (2022) suggests that starting my exposition in this chapter with (conventional) cognitive categories, not (conventional and structured) codes and narratives implicitly devalues the latter. My intention was quite the reverse. Rather, it seemed practical to start where a neophyte audience would find simple, commonsense connections, before moving to more complex ways of analyzing cultural forms. Taylor also argues that I under-emphasize the importance of the original theoretical program introducing the importance of culture structures like binary codes and narratives to sociology. However, my discussion of why culture-structures are important (p. 36) does quote Alexander and Smith’s (1993) forceful argument for structural hermeneutics directly.
Taylor suggests that the contrast between theories of habitus and theories of performance should be more explicit in chapter three on culture in interaction. Otherwise, students may mistakenly overemphasize structural resources or practical interaction in their analysis of performance. But in my view, given the different theories’ affinities with different empirical objects, individual and ritual, this is one of the more unlikely theoretical confusions students might face as they dig deeper. I think the “naturalizations” of combining habitus and repertoire, or the two versions of small group theory, are more important and more likely controversial than habitus/performance. And the deviations from orthodoxy she is concerned with may even enrich the respective theories (Spillman, 2005). Too often, orthodox theorists seem to reinvent wheels better added by theoretical synthesis.
For example, Taylor (2022) has made a major contribution extending performance theory to considerations of audience performance and arcs of fusion created by and dependent on audience responses. She analyzes how arcs of fusion among political operatives and among volunteers sustained and indeed determined the success of Bernie Sanders’ political campaigns. It seems important to build this theorization with attention to group scenes and styles (Lichterman & Dasgupta, 2020) and the ways group norms constrain and enable the possibility of fusion. As Taylor would likely agree, audiences are not simply aggregates of individuals.
So I do not see historical approaches as background to production-of-culture and field theory programs, as Taylor seems to imply, but rather as an important tradition in cultural sociology which needs more recognition.
Such theories may generate general propositions about relations between variables, or explanations of particular social phenomena, but they need not do so (Abend, 2008, 180).
However, Thompson’s more extended theorization is particularly concerned with developing a historically grounded understanding of the “social contextualization of symbolic forms,” especially in conditions of mass communication (1990, 162).
It would be interesting to pursue Inglis’ suggestions about other possible answers to the question “What Is Cultural Sociology?” from the point of view of different scholarly fields, especially national fields, by starting with the useful “Regional Spotlight” feature of Cultural Sociology. Recent essays have included discussions of cultural sociology in Czechia (Skovajsa, 2021), Brazil (Neto, 2020), China (Xu et al., 2019), and France (Alexandre, 2018). As I mention in the conclusion of What Is Cultural Sociology?, I would expect different emphases, core references, and core examples, but I would also expect that these variations could be understood in terms of the three compatible but irreducible dimensions of meaning-making I analyze.
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Spillman, L. Reading Between and Across the Lines: a Response to Anne Taylor’s “What Is Cultural Sociological Debate? A Review of Lyn Spillman’s What Is Cultural Sociology? (2020, Cambridge: Polity Press)”. Int J Polit Cult Soc 36, 285–295 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-022-09428-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-022-09428-9