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Conceptual and Definitional Polysemy of the Term of Culture in Contemporary Social Sciences

The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the conceptual and definitional polysemy of the term ‘culture’, as well as to emphasize some of the contemporary sociological and interdisciplinary concepts, theories and understandings of culture. This is an important topic in social sciences, actualized by contemporary theories of globalization, glocalization and discussions concerning global culture, contemporary transnational anthropological approaches to culture, sociological theories of modernity and modernization, “post-colonial discourse”, “strong program” in cultural sociology, contemporary postmodern theoretical turns such as “cultural turn”, “spatial turn”, “complexity turn”. In this regard, various new scientific and theoretical concepts, notions and understandings of culture in the “global age“ are developing. All of them have abandoned the traditional definition of culture as unique, homogeneous, closed, static, territorialized, national, and now emphasize the understanding of culture as a diverse, hybrid, heterogeneous, open, fluid, dynamic, deterritorialized and transnational. However, in contemporary debates concerning multiculturalism, identity politics, politicization of culture, and cultural rights, it remains unclear, and it is still an open question as to way the term of culture is be defined, whether the traditional concept of culture is used, or whether culture is understood in a new way, which again updates its conceptual and definitional polysemy. In that sense, this paper points out the importance of defining the term of culture and the need to explain different usages and concepts of culture in contemporary social sciences.

culture ; globalization ; post-modern theoretical turn

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