Culture operates as a constitutive force in politics and social change

Evidence

In this milieu, culture came to be seen not as an absolute value but as a constitutive dimension of all social practices and thus an active force in politics and social change: offering what (in the issue of the Labour Club journal, Clarion , which I edited and which was dominated by responses to The Uses of Literacy ) I called “quite different kinds of evidence” (Hall 1957: 3). — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 159

Categorization

• DEFINE: Articulates Hall’s core conception of culture as constitutive rather than reflective, foundational to his later cultural studies work.
• XREF: Defines the ‘cultural turn’ that became distinctive of New Left and Cultural Studies; central to the reader’s project. — connects to: Cultural shift and economic transition align but causal direction stays unclear — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1047; Crises trigger change only through ideas already available in the culture — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 276; Culture spans everyday social reproduction and aesthetic practice as one contested process — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 114 (+5 more)