Understanding a culture often means setting aside the standards of another. These curations cover cultural relativism, how anthropologists study variation among cultures, cultural studies of power and meaning, and the limits of the cultural imperialism idea.
Cultural studies is an approach to understanding how people interpret and reshape meanings in media and everyday life, rather than simply receiving them. Beginning in 1964, Stuart Hall's pioneering work at CCCS, along with that of his colleagues and postgraduate students, gave shape and substance to the field. The lessons explore culture, identity, power, and collective participation.
Cultural relativism is the view that a culture's values should be understood in their own context, not judged by another culture's standards, and Franz Boas first articulated the idea in 1887. What helps us understand values across cultural frameworks, and how can we make sense of apparent disagreements between them? The lessons consider how judgments relate to cultural and historical contexts.
Cultural anthropology studies how cultures vary among humans, using methods such as participant observation, interviews, and surveys. These lessons answer how to understand cultures on their own terms, while considering how comparison, research across locations, and differences in cultural categories shape that understanding.
Cultural imperialism is when a dominant group imposes its culture on another community, using cultural practices to enforce a way of life and trying to transform or erase parts of the subordinate culture. The lessons answer how far the media imperialism thesis can explain cultural influence, while accounting for the varied ways people interpret and respond to it.
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