Between Semiosis and Materiality: Theoretical Cornerstones

Abstract

Chapter 2 focuses on the theoretical foundations of the book by introducing cultural political economy (CPE) as the overarching research programme of the project and discussing its peculiarity as a ‘third way’ between the opposite risks of radical structuralism and constructivism respectively. It follows an in-depth discussion of the two poles that CPE seeks to merge, i.e. critical political economy and critical semiotic analysis. First, CPE’s critical political economy approach to the capitalist type of state develops along a parallel conception of capital as a social relation and of the state as a social relation. Second, the chapter clarifies what does it mean for CPE to take semiosis into account and presents Faircloughs’s critical discourse analysis approach as a key candidate to fulfil this task.