Toward a Theory of Local Social and Cultural Structure

• In Event: 209 - Theory Section Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Cultural Sociology 1

Abstract

Many accounts of social structure assume it to be an emergent, supra-individual order. Likewise, many neo-Saussurean theorists of culture treat cultural structure as macro-level relationships between cultural components. This paper argues that such theories of structure often answer the Hobbesian problem of order with a misguided conceptualization of structure that loses relevance for theories of action and makes problematic assumptions about actor characteristics. Further, both approaches indefensibly assume an a priori social boundedness. In place of these prevalent organicist and neo-Saussurean conceptions of social and cultural structures, I proffer the beginnings of a theory stressing the importance of sociocultural locality. I argue, following Radcliffe-Brown, that social structure should be treated as actual social connections. This formulation does not get entangled with suspect ontological or organismic assumptions, and it does not subsume culture under the guise of social structure. Following recent work on cognition and culture, I define culture simply as socially transmitted information. If culture is this information stored in the minds of people, then culture has its own structure through its duality with social structure, yet this cultural structure exists relative to each actor in the social structure. Various forms of order within a population can be explained only with recourse to local interactions, the cultural environment in which individuals live, and the dynamic interplay between the two.

Author

• Brandon Sepulvado, University of Notre Dame