How Symbols Assume Multiple Meanings in One Context

• In Event: 571 - Section on Sociology of Culture Paper Session. Culture and Networks: Connections, Meaning and Beyond

Abstract

How does one symbol assert multiple meanings in one context without losing its mooring in the larger semiotic web of publically available meanings? This paper argues that symbols take on meanings in local contexts through the creation of small, local level semiotic networks that reconfigure the connections between symbols in broad societal ideologies. Content and map analyses of three types of tourism marketing materials in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil reveal that State and private sector sources construct competing racialized cultural identities for Salvador, while drawing each drawing upon this small repertoires of cultural traditions. Map analysis reveals the divergent local semiotic configurations of these symbols that make these divergent identity claims possible. These multiple local semiotic systems exist in one conceptual space by drawing upon three distinct ideologies of race at work in Brazil – racial democracy, reafricanisation, and global cultural difference.

Author

• Danielle Hedegard, University of California-San Diego