Making Culture, Changing Society
Tony Bennett
Routledge – 2013
by Dave O'Brien
New Books in Sociology - November 13, 2013
[
Cross-posted from New Books in Critical Theory] In his new book
Making Culture, Changing Society (Routledge, 2013), Professor
Tony Bennett aims
to change the way we think about culture. The book uses four core ideas
about the nature and meaning of culture to present a view that does not
see culture as just a set of signs and symbols. Rather culture is a
form of knowledge practice, bound up with material conditions and
institutions, which is implicated in the production of persons and
freedoms.
Making Culture, Changing Society justifies this view
of culture in two ways. In the first instance the book considers how
specific humanities disciplines, associated with anthropology and
aesthetics, have been used to distribute ideas of freedom and ideas of
the person within liberal government. Bennett uses examples from
anthropological studies of colonial societies, along with discussions of
the role of aesthetics for theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu, to show
the function of culture and its interdependence with forms of knowledge.
At the same time the book insists on the material aspects of these
discussions, using the example of Melbourne’s National Museum of
Victoria and Paris’ Musee de l’Homme.
The book offers an important intervention into debates on culture and
public policy, grounding questions of rights and representations within
the historical project of liberal government. Moreover it develops a
critique of the assumptions surrounding culture as a potentially
positive or beneficial force for social change, raising profound
questions for public, politics and policy.
To listen the interview.....
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