‚Kultur‘ und ‚das Kulturelle‘: Zur Reflexivität eines begehrten Begriffs

Abstract

AbstractThis paper discusses the interpretive complexity of ‘culture’, which is at the same time the central theoretical concept of ‘cultural linguistics’ (kulturwissenschaftliche Linguistik) as well as the object of its investigation, i.e., a conceptual term and a discursive phenomenon. This results in ambiguous conceptualizations: In culture-theoretical work, ‘culture’ is usually described as being ‘dynamic’, ‘fluid’, ‘procedural’ and ‘context-dependent’, but in discourse, culture is often, if not predominantly, perceived as something ‘static’, ‘fixed’, ‘essential’ and ‘general’. From this ambiguity, many methodological questions emerge: Is it advisable to rely on a concept that has such an enormous ideological load (and that, moreover, is increasingly used in recent neo-nationalist and even neo-racist propaganda)? Does culture analysis willy-nilly perpetuate problematic essentialist framings while relying on ‘culture’ as a descriptive concept? Is it methodologically sensible to use concepts for description and explanation of discourses that are actually products of the discourses that are supposed to be explained (cf. Foucault 2001 [1968])? In other words: is ‘cultural linguistics’ a circular venture if it explains cultural discourses on the background of the concept of culture? Is the discrepancy between dynamic and static, ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ concepts of culture to be solved, and how? Should we try to de-ideologize ‘culture’, as some culturally oriented scholars have proposed? Or should we rather drop the concept, as other scholars (particularly from a post-colonial point of view) have suggested? The paper discusses these questions, argues for more sensitivity vis-à-vis the ideological contextualization of ‘culture’ and suggests differentiating ideological fixations of ‘culture’ from the discursive processes and negotiations that constitute ‘the cultural’.