Talk:Cultural analysis

??
The information on this page seems strangely vague and unverified.

Ms-bookish (talk)

Yes it does.

Am thinking that cultural analysis is a specialised form of research that takes place within the context of other disciplines, many other disciplines, not just sociology or even its close neighbours. For example, in geography cultural analysis is, perhaps, best understood as cultural geography? But anyway, cultural analysis is an activity that is carried out across the disciplinary spectrum.

Perhaps cultural analysis can be defined as 'the analytical study of culture', possibly a bit circular but it is flexible, allowing any discipline that engages in the analytical study of culture to be included as a contributor to the joint project of cultural analysis. 'Joint' does not mean unified or coherent! This may be one reason the description of cultural analysis as a 'discipline' feels a little bit awkward, it implies a coherence that, as a field, it does not actually have.

Possibly the reason why this page is difficult to flesh out is that cultural analysis means different things to different people and disciplines. Many different theories and methods frame the work of cultural analysis and many different schools of thought could be said to be conducting cultural analysis (e.g. Annales may be a candidate for being described as a form of cultural analysis). A lot of the time these different approaches are seriously at odds and the field is the subject of deep epistemological and philosophical disagreements. Think of the so-called Culture/Science Wars.

Ms-bookish (talk) 12:25, 12 September 2012 (UTC)