Problematizing the concept of ‘popular culture’
by Dr. habil. Ildikó Bellér-Hann
This presentation was prepared with the aim to start a discussion on the subject at the study day of the GSAA. Therefore it is a summary of selected views of various scholars and disciplines and does not pretend to be a new contribution to the field. I have drawn extensively on Peter Burke’s classic introduction to PC (1978).
Übersicht
The concept of popular culture (from here on PC) is widely used in many disciplines, ranging from cultural studies, social/cultural anthropology, sociology, to social history and literary studies. PC represents a perspective which recognizes the ordinary and the common place as legitimate objects of scholarly enquiry.
Although its precise definitions vary, these usually share the common feature that they are built on a dichotomy, with PC as residual. Thus, PC is typically defined as the unofficial culture of the non-elite, of the subordinated social groups, of simple, ordinary people (shepherds, peasants, craftsmen), of marginalized groups (beggars, children, women, black people) as opposed to the culture of the elite, the dominant social groups, the ruling classes. While actual definitions depend on the disciplinary perspective of the authors, PC cannot be defined without reference to particular theories, and it is always ideology laden.
To give just two examples, cultural historians and literary scholars of pre-industrial societies define PC as the folk culture of pre-industrial societies, while representatives of cultural studies see it as the degraded mass culture of urban industrial societies.
Although the notion of culture itself is hugely problematic and recently some scholars argue vehemently against its use, theorists of PC generally seem to agree that it is a set of practices and processes of making shared meanings. This definition assumes that meaning can never be fixed, final or true, instead it is always constructed, contextual and contingent, therefore cultures are always the sites of competing meanings and interpretations.
PC in social and cultural history
Peter Burke points out that the term ’popular’ is also highly problematic. It implies a false sense of homogeneity, suggesting that at a given time in a given society PC is somehow monolithic. In addition, the dichotomous model of popular versus elite realms emphasises the dividing line between the two rather than the fact that this borderline is permeable and fuzzy. Burke warns that interaction across this assumed theoretical borderline deserves more attention than the division between the two. This point can be nicely illustrated with Bakhtin’s work on the mediaeval carnival in which the transgression of boundaries gets special emphasis. His definition of the carnival opposes it to official culture rather than to elite culture, a perspective which comes close to identifying the popular with the rebellious. A similar stance may be recognised in the work of some social historians such as E.P. Thompson (Customs in Common 1991), who, adopting Gramsci’s idea of cultural hegemony, looked at the interaction between above and below, implying that above should be interpreted as dominant, below as subordinate.
A similar path is followed by De Certeau in ’The Practice of everyday life’. According to him there can be no popular dominant culture, for PC is formed always in reaction to and never as part of the forces of domination. It is always produced under conditions of subordination, characterized by the creativity of the weak.
Emphasizing the vagueness of the boundaries of culture, the French historian Roger Chartier suggests that instead of trying to identify PC by some supposedly specific distribution of cultural objects one should concentrate on how these objects were appropriated by various social groups in a specific historical context.
Burke proposes that this ’appropriation model’ is most useful for studying texts and material culture which forces us to look at the ’the social life of things’. But a focus on social groups still requires retaining the two-tier model modified to allow for the circulation of objects.
The emergence of the notion of PC
In the late 18th -early 19th centuries traditional folk culture was discovered by European intellectuals, with Germans leading the way and numerous European countries following suit. The activities of Johann Gottfried Herder and the brothers Grimm were particularly influential in the crystallisation of the concept of PC, identified both as the creation as well as the exclusive property of the people, as opposed to elite culture. From the very beginning classifications of certain works as products of PC was contested, and Herder himself came to the conclusion that the definition of the people who can be credited with artistic creativity should be narrowed down to the peasants, who lived close to nature, leaving out the ’mob of the streets, who never sing or compose but shriek and mutilate’.
The discovery of PC included not only the collection and publication of folk songs, folk tales and other genres of oral tradition but also the discovery of popular festivals, rituals, religion, music and even the history of ’the people’.
Not only did this movement, which was unique on account of its breadth rather than content, contributed to the emerging ideology of European nationalisms, it also gave rise to the study of folklore which made ample use of the concept of PC and helped to establish a tradition which identified ordinary people with the masses.
Cultural and social historians agree that PC was neither homogeneous nor unchanging, and emphasised the lively interaction between town and countryside. Early modern PC emerges under conditions of a relatively high degree of economic specialization and social stratification.
PC in Cultural Studies
In contrast to cultural historians, scholars working from the perspective of cultural studies see it as the degraded mass culture of urban industrial societies. While the identification of PC with mass culture goes back to Matthew Arnold, it was the representatives of the Frankfurter Schule, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer who in the 1940s coined the term ’culture industry’ to describe the products and processes of ’mass culture’. In this approach PC functions to secure the stability and continuity of capitalism.
So the Frankfurter Schule agrees with Marxist theorists (Gramsci /Althusser) on the idea that PC is a form of dominant ideology which is instrumental in maintaining social authority; depoliticising the working classes.
This view sees PC as a culture imposed from above (representing structure), but opposing views credit PC with agency, as a culture spontaneously emerging from below, representing the voice of people.
Of course both are present at the same time, and PC is best seen as an arena of contestation and continuous interaction between structure and agency.
Literature
- Burke, Peter [1978]. 2002. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. (revised reprint) London: Ashgate.
- Chartier, Roger 1987. The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France. Princeton.
- De Certeau (1984) 2000. The practice of everyday life. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press.
- Mukerji, Chandra and Michael Schudson (eds.) 1991. Rethinking popular culture. Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. Univ. of California Press. Berkeley, L.A. Oxford.
- Storey, John 2003. Inventing Popular Culture. From Folklore to Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Strinati, Dominic 2003. An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge.
- Waites, Bernard, Tony Bennett & Graham Martin (eds.) 2001. Popular Culture: Past and Present. London: Routledge.