Studies

Cultural studies is a field of theoretically, politically, and empirically engaged cultural analysis that was initially developed by British academics in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and has been subsequently taken up and transformed by scholars from many different disciplines around the world. Cultural studies is avowedly and even radically interdisciplinary and can sometimes be seen as antidisciplinary. As cultural studies scholar Toby Miller has written, "cultural studies is a tendency across disciplines, rather than a discipline itself."[1] Although most practitioners of cultural studies are professional academics, Gilbert Rodman has argued in his 2015 book, Why Cultural Studies?, that the field must be understood to include some non-academic cultural analysts and practitioners as well as academic ones.[2] A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives.

The field of cultural studies encompasses a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives and practices. Although distinct from the disciplines of cultural anthropology and ethnic studies, cultural studies draws upon and has contributed to each of these disciplines. Cultural studies concentrates upon the political dynamics of contemporary culture, its historical foundations, defining traits, and conflicts. CS researchers generally investigate how cultural practices relate to wider systems of power associated with or operating through social phenomena, such as ideology, class structures, national formations, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender and generation. Cultural studies views cultures not as fixed, bounded, stable and discrete entities, but rather as constantly interacting and changing sets of practices and processes.[3]