There Is Such a Thing as Culture

Richard Peet
Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA, US; e-mail: rpeet@clarku.edu

This is a beautiful book. It is argumentative without being annoying, political yet not offensive, well-written but not ostentatious, Marxist without being dogmatic. It is as thorough empirically as it is profound theoretically. It does not turn the reader off with arty pretentiousness. It is not overly chic, as with much of the new cultural geography. One feature of the book that I personally appreciate is the honesty of Don Mitchells citation of other peoples work. Citations of previous work usually follow one of three strategies: 1) Quickiesin the usual Smith (1992) says this, while Jones (2000) adds that format; the aim is to impress through bibliographic barrage rather than synthesize ideas in new formats; 2) Trendiesthe aim is to cite as many newly fashionable authors as possible or, optimally, to begin a citation wave (eg Latour a few years ago); 3) Transcendiesthis involves consigning the cited author to the intellectual rubbish heap, usually as overly simplistic, while the citing author, after a few condescending words, moves to the cutting edge. None of these strategies takes other peoples work seriously. Indeed, the citing author often does not read the cited work; thus, most of the references to Latour quoted exactly the same single sentence, suggesting that trendies cite others quotations rather than reading for themselves. None of this for Don. Or, rather, only a bit of it (see p 77). On the whole Don reads and appreciates the work of others. So on p 120 and on p 144, in one of the chapters on landscape, there are two quotations from my own work that I, too, would have chosen as representing some of the best of my ideas. And they are set in discussions that show that Don understands the overall argument. Such are signs of a mature but still tender mind (Mitchell 2000). I have one reservation about the argument presented in the book. Unfortunately my criticism deals with a major contention, rather than a minor point, although our differences are not unsurmountable.
2002 Editorial Board of Antipode. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

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Even so, what I am about to say should not be taken as undermining the appreciation expressed above. (Skeptic pass on by, read no more this is not for you.) What I have in mind is the argument summarized in chapter 1, but elaborated laterespecially in chapter 3 that theres no such thing as culture (p 12). Or, as Don (p 12) says, when we use the word culture we are really not referring to anything at all. Instead we are drawing on what could be called an empty abstractionan abstraction that has no referent in the material world. When I mentioned this to Don at the New York Association of American Geographers meeting in FebruaryMarch 2001, he replied that the phrase no such thing referred to the reification of culture. So there is no set of objects that can be referred to as culture, as with artworks, for instance. If this is what Don means, I could not agree more. However, he goes on to ask (p 13) How is it possible to claim both that culture does not exist and that it is one of the most important forces in our lives? Thus the phrase no such thing seems also to mean culture does not exist, in the sense that no complex recognizable as culture can be separated out meaningfully from an even more complicated reality. If this is what Don means, then I think that the formulation culture does not exist, yet is important weakens the books argument on the centrality of culture wars in contemporary social existence. What does not exist cannot exert force. I also think that it is an unnecessary complication, as I shall attempt to argue. Because I am atheist, I have to agree that something that does not exist as a real (objective) entity can still be an important social force. Yet when we define god as a system of religious beliefs, rather than a guy in the sky, then something may indeed be said to exist and exert considerable force. Indeed exactly the mystery of gods nonexistence lends lasting compulsion to this peculiar belief. Similarly, as Don argues more forcefully elsewhere (Mitchell 1995), the idea of culture acts as a potent political ideology. However, culture has more than an imagined existence. It is a social imaginary (using this term to mean socially organized forms of collective imaginations). Rather than confront this possibility, Dons subsequent discussion of the does not exist yet exerts force issue in Cultural Geography revolves around difficulties in defining and bounding the term culture. Hence, culture is a complex word, culture is not independent of economy, culture means everything that is not nature (pp 1316). So, because it is difficult to define conceptually, culture does not exist? Here the argument borders on a kind of linguistic or discursive idealism that mistakes word for world. The simpler explanation is that culture exists, but is difficult to define. As I have suggested elsewhere (Peet 2000), culture might be defined as the symbolic order a society constructs to represent its existence. This definition is similar to Williams (1981:13) definition of culture as

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the signifying system through which a social order is communicated, reproduced, experienced, and explored, and it resembles Geertzs (1973:89) idea of culture as an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols. Cultural analysis is the study of the meaningful constitution of socially contextualized symbolic forms, with symbols bearing the imprint of their social and political conditions of production, yet with terms like meaningful constitution also implying subjective processes of interpretation. Indeed, deep symbolization means the formation of symbols from long-term, ongoing interpretations of all kinds of experiences, including the most profound, usually phrased in religious terms, and always employed in contests over power. The depth notion insists, despite postmodern skepticism, that culture expresses a peoples beliefs about the great issues of human existence; religion symbolizing lifes origins, purposes and eventual destination; ethics representing the lessons deriving from the experiences gained during long-lasting social relations. In its more conventional sense, cultural production refers to the transformation of ideational symbols (ideas, beliefs, values, aesthetics) into linguistic and material artifacts. These are culturally powerful to the degree that they transmit fundamental values, and culturally innovative to the extent that they modify or transform ideas felt at the level of deep emotion (ie beliefs). Yet all processes of symbolization, from ideas to artifacts, are cultural. The key position in this cultural complex is control over the means of interpretationthe means by which sense is made from experience. Hence the importance of the family, the church, the school and the institutions of civil society, as Gramsci (1971) stressed. This political, radical conception of symbolization as essentially politicized interpretation of experience draws on Marxist notions like ideology and hegemony, but also employs phenomenological and poststructural notions of power, symbol, and discourse. It enables cultural production to be seen as a class, gendered, and ethnically powered process that still involves deep and satisfying interpretation of existential quandaries. The notion of the social structuring of symbolic practice is a much-needed antidote to tendencies for culture and discourse to float free of their material and social bases. In other words, I think that a set of symbolic practices exists, bound together by social relations, that constitute a whole coherent enough to be designated by the term culture. Further, I argue that powerful social forces have to exist in recognizable forms that can be designated by terms that have quite consistent meanings. Indeed, such designations allow far more precise critical analyses. Such a formulation of culture would allow all the analyses Don conducts in his wonderful book. In this I do not think we are far apart. I merely argue that Dons argument would be even stronger if he were to lose this part of his case.

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References
Geertz C (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books Gramsci A (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers Mitchell D (1995) Theres no such thing as culture: Towards a reconceptualization of the idea of culture in geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 20:102116 Mitchell D (2000) Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Peet R (2000) Culture, imaginary, and rationality in regional economic development. Environment and Planning 32:12151234 Williams R (1981) Culture. Glasgow: Fontana