The Claims of Culture

The Claims of Culture PDF Author: Seyla Benhabib
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691186545
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them." Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts. Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century.

The Claims of Culture

The Claims of Culture PDF Author: Seyla Benhabib
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691186545
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them." Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts. Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century.

Culture and Equality

Culture and Equality PDF Author: Brian Barry
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745665640
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
All major western countries today contain groups that differ in their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century. Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities free to associate in pursuit of their distinctive ends within the limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming' their value, and by providing them with special privileges or subsidies. In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be genuinely beneficial.

Sex, Culture, and Justice

Sex, Culture, and Justice PDF Author: Clare Chambers
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271045949
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Autonomy is fundamental to liberalism. But autonomous individuals often choose to do things that harm themselves or undermine their equality. In particular, women often choose to participate in practices of sexual inequality&—cosmetic surgery, gendered patterns of work and childcare, makeup, restrictive clothing, or the sexual subordination required by membership in certain religious groups. In this book, Clare Chambers argues that this predicament poses a fundamental challenge to many existing liberal and multicultural theories that dominate contemporary political philosophy. Chambers argues that a theory of justice cannot ignore the influence of culture and the role it plays in shaping choices. If cultures shape choices, it is problematic to use those choices as the measure of the justice of the culture. Drawing upon feminist critiques of gender inequality and poststructuralist theories of social construction, she argues that we should accept some of the multicultural claims about the importance of culture in shaping our actions and identities, but that we should reach the opposite normative conclusion to that of multiculturalists and many liberals. Rather than using the idea of social construction to justify cultural respect or protection, we should use it to ground a critical stance toward cultural norms. The book presents radical proposals for state action to promote sexual and cultural justice.

Platforms and Cultural Production

Platforms and Cultural Production PDF Author: Thomas Poell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509540520
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The widespread uptake of digital platforms – from YouTube and Instagram to Twitch and TikTok – is reconfiguring cultural production in profound, complex, and highly uneven ways. Longstanding media industries are experiencing tremendous upheaval, while new industrial formations – live-streaming, social media influencing, and podcasting, among others – are evolving at breakneck speed. Poell, Nieborg, and Duffy explore both the processes and the implications of platformization across the cultural industries, identifying key changes in markets, infrastructures, and governance at play in this ongoing transformation, as well as pivotal shifts in the practices of labor, creativity, and democracy. The authors foreground three particular industries – news, gaming, and social media creation – and also draw upon examples from music, advertising, and more. Diverse in its geographic scope, Platforms and Cultural Production builds on the latest research and accounts from across North America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and China to reveal crucial differences and surprising parallels in the trajectories of platformization across the globe. Offering a novel conceptual framework grounded in illuminating case studies, this book is essential for students, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to understand how the institutions and practices of cultural production are transforming – and what the stakes are for understanding platform power.

Reality Bites

Reality Bites PDF Author: Dana L. Cloud
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780814213612
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
"An analysis of truth claims in contemporary U.S. political rhetoric through a series of case studies--including the PolitiFact fact-checking project, the Planned Parenthood "selling baby parts" scandal, the Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden cases, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos, and the Black Lives Matter movement"--

‘We Are All Here to Stay’

‘We Are All Here to Stay’ PDF Author: Dominic O’Sullivan
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760463957
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In 2007, 144 UN member states voted to adopt a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US were the only members to vote against it. Each eventually changed its position. This book explains why and examines what the Declaration could mean for sovereignty, citizenship and democracy in liberal societies such as these. It takes Canadian Chief Justice Lamer’s remark that ‘we are all here to stay’ to mean that indigenous peoples are ‘here to stay’ as indigenous. The book examines indigenous and state critiques of the Declaration but argues that, ultimately, it is an instrument of significant transformative potential showing how state sovereignty need not be a power that is exercised over and above indigenous peoples. Nor is it reasonably a power that displaces indigenous nations’ authority over their own affairs. The Declaration shows how and why, and this book argues that in doing so, it supports more inclusive ways of thinking about how citizenship and democracy may work better. The book draws on the Declaration to imagine what non-colonial political relationships could look like in liberal societies.

Trust, Democracy, and Multicultural Challenges

Trust, Democracy, and Multicultural Challenges PDF Author: Patti Tamara Lenard
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271052538
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
"Examines the potential for distrust in an environment of ethnocultural diversity arising from increasing rates of immigration, and its implications for a democratic society. Incorporates democratic theory, multiculturalism theory, and migration theory"--Provided by publisher.

Culture Politics

Culture Politics PDF Author: Kirk Dombrowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615950419
Category : Alaska, Southeast
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This book traces the history of indigenous land claims in Southeast Alaska. Based on three years of residence and over two decades of research and writing, Culture Politics lays out how Native land claims in Alaska came about, and why they have proven so divisive for many Alaska Native communities. Reframing and going beyond Dombrowski's earlier book, Against Culture, the current volume looks in depth at the trials and tribulations of subsistence hunters and fishers in villages like Hydaburg, Kake, Klawock, and Hoonah. Each of these communities has faced the same onslaught of timber harvesting and the collapse of the local fishery. Some have grown as a result, while others have shrunk. And some have spawned radical Pentecostal churches that have taken a stance against Native culture. Reactions like these are surprising, more so when they are most stridently advocated by Natives themselves. This book describes why this is so, and traces these processes back to the Land Claims process itself. Culture Politics is aimed at both popular and academic audiences. While the social and political processes it describes are complex, the language of the text is intended for ordinary adult readers. Those interested in Native American affairs, the history of Alaska, or the effect of environmental development on northern communities will find much to appreciate in this compelling, first-hand telling of life on the edge of America. Reviews of Dombrowski's last book on Alaska: "Dombrowski's ethnography provides a timely intervention for developing a comparative understanding of liberal state interventions in the sphere of indigenous rights. He provides us with a nuanced understanding of the post-colonial world of indigenous peoples in his study of the Tlingit and Haida of southeast Alaska today. . . . This ethnography deserves to be read widely. It is most powerful in dealing with the internal fractures evident in indigenous communities, but does not ignore the interplay that exists between legislative processes, the exigencies of market forces, and the legacies of over-exploited finite resources."-Barry Morris, Australian Journal of Anthropology (Barry Morris Australian Journal of Anthropology ) "Well written and based on diligent research, the book will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary Native American issues. [Recommended for] all levels and collections."-Choice (Choice ) "Anyone who has attempted to sort out the intricacies of Native American Sovereignty movements or more generally, the nuances of Federal-Indian law, will immediately appreciate Dombrowski's trenchant formulations, the hallmark quality of which is a penetrating analysis of the ways that nativism and world capitalism are neither wholly separate nor wholly antagonistic but, rather, frequently connected and interdependent in surprising and unsettling ways."-Greg Johnson, The Journal of Religion (The Journal of Religion ) "Against Culture is most productively surprising in the multiple ways the analysis grows beyond both its theoretical origins and its ethnography, to become widely useful, particularly for the development of new ways of understanding indigenous peoples' continuing histories."-Gerald Sider, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Sacred Claims

Sacred Claims PDF Author: Greg Johnson
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813926612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 provides a legal framework within which Native Americans can seek the repatriation of human remains and certain categories of cultural objects--including "sacred objects"--from federally funded institutions. Although the repatriation movement among Native Americans has heretofore received scholarly attention specifically focused on this act, Sacred Claims is the first book to analyze the ways in which religious discourse is used to articulate repatriation claims. Greg Johnson takes this act as one instance in a larger context wherein native peoples around the globe must engage legal arenas in order to preserve their heritage. Methodologically, Sacred Claims is based on a close reading of government documents concerning the law and participant observation in a variety of NAGPRA-related events and provides the background and legislative history of the law, the life history of the act's axial term cultural affiliation (the most delicate and least understood aspect of NAGPRA), and several case studies of highly visible and contentious Hawaiian repatriation disputes. Johnson then moves beyond the strictly legal context to analyze NAGPRA discourse in the public realm. He concludes by way of a theoretical treatment of the foregoing issues, arguing that religious language was the chief means by which native representatives ultimately persuaded non-native audiences of the applicability of widely-held human rights principles to their cultural remains. Theorizing modes of cultural vitality in the repatriation context, Johnson argues that living tradition is not found in the objects themselves but is instead located in struggles over them. With the law on the brink of receiving crucial tests, and repatriation issues making daily headlines in Native American and Hawaiian news, Sacred Claims is a timely and necessary examination of these issues.

Culture is bad for you

Culture is bad for you PDF Author: Orian Brook
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526144174
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Culture will keep you fit and healthy. Culture will bring communities together. Culture will improve your education. This is the message from governments and arts organisations across the country; however, this book explains why we need to be cautious about culture. Offering a powerful call to transform the cultural and creative industries, Culture is bad for you examines the intersections between race, class, and gender in the mechanisms of exclusion in cultural occupations. Exclusion from culture begins at an early age, the authors argue, and despite claims by cultural institutions and businesses to hire talented and hardworking individuals, women, people of colour, and those from working class backgrounds are systematically disbarred. While the inequalities that characterise both workforce and audience remain unaddressed, the positive contribution culture makes to society can never be fully realised.