Structuralism reframed culture study from decoding social contents to cracking codes

Evidence

Culture was organized “like a language”: hence it could only be studied on the analogy of structuralist linguistics. This brought structuralism directly to the terrain of classifications and codes: “the analysis of relationships and transformations within symbolic systems.” These relationships were not those which we experienced but those which we used to “think the world with”: concus , not v é cus . The aim of the enterprise thus became, not deciphering the social contents locked up or somehow expressed in symbolic forms, or examining the relationship between what was conceived and who conceived it. Its aim was to decipher the internal articulation: to crack the code . This is, without any doubt, the moment of the formation, within the sphere of the study of culture and ideology, of a quite distinctive problematic, based on an altogether different notion of causal relationship between social and mental categories: the moment of inception of what has come to be called “structuralist causality.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 361

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘structuralist causality’ as a distinctive problematic based on a new notion of causal relationship between social and mental categories.
• XREF: Connects to the concern/vecu distinction familiar from cultural studies debates and to the broader Marx-structuralism interface in this volume.