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The being of culture: beyond representation
Alec McHoul
School of Media Communication and Culture, Murdoch
University, W. Australia 6150, Perth Australia. E-mail:
a.mchoul@gmail.com. Tel: +61 9525 9501.
Accepted 22 October, 2009. |
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This work begins with the general question of whether it is
possible to think of the idea of culture beyond the confines
of representationalism, and discusses Heidegger’s ‘matter’
of Ereignis as the ‘mis-appropriability’ of cultures and
cultural objects. In the second section, it moves on to the
question of the ontological difference and its significance
for a non-representationalist version of culture as ‘poiesis’.
This leads to a radical notion of (transcendental)
empiricity beyond the ordinary sense of ‘the empirical’ and,
in light of this, a questioning of cultural relativism and
the invisibility of the ontological difference to the
cultural sciences. The third section of the paper briefly
addresses the ethics of cultural research and the possible
deconceptualisation of (the idea) culture. The final section
summarises the paper by offering a (counter) definition of
culture as such.
Key words:
Culture, representation, Ereignis, ‘appropriability’, ‘poiesis’,
transcendental empiricism, cultural relativism, research
ethics. |
