The ‘popular’ marks subordinate culture’s resistance to being cast as low

Evidence

The important point is the ordering of different aesthetic morals, social aesthetics, the orderings of culture that open up culture to the play of power, not an inventory of what is high versus what is low at any particular moment. That is why Gramsci gave the question of what he called “the national-popular” such strategic importance. The role of the “popular” in popular culture is to fix the authenticity of popular forms, rooting them in the experiences of popular communities from which they draw their strength, allowing us to see them as expressive of a particular subordinate social life that resists its being constantly made over as low and outside. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 280

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s ‘national-popular’ as a strategic concept is exactly the scaffolding term the reader’s foundational module needs to carry forward.
• XREF: The ‘popular’ as resistance to being ‘made over as low and outside’ foreshadows how Muslim communities negotiate being framed as ‘outside’ the Western national-popular. — connects to: The popular is defined relationally by opposition to elite culture, not by its contents; Popular culture is defined by its tension with dominant culture — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1011; Popular culture is a contested site of consent and resistance, not pure authenticity (+4 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 280

Broader Connections

• The popular is defined relationally by opposition to elite culture, not by its contents #corroborates (0.95)
• What counts as popular culture is defined by power relations, not by content inventory #corroborates (0.92)
• The popular is defined by relations of power, not by a fixed content #corroborates (0.90)
• Popular culture is defined by its tension with dominant culture #corroborates (0.82) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1011
• Popular culture is a contested site of consent and resistance, not pure authenticity #corroborates (0.80)
• Popular culture is a contested site where meanings get struggled over #corroborates (0.75)