The culturalist paradigm rejects the base-superstructure model of material and ideal forces.

Evidence

Here, then, despite the many significant differences, is the outline of one significant line of thinking in Cultural Studies—some would say, the dominant paradigm. It stands opposed to the residual and merely reflective role assigned to “the cultural.” In its different ways, it conceptualizes culture as interwoven with all social practices; and those practices, in turn, as a common form of human activity: sensuous human praxis, the activity through which men and women make history. It is opposed to the base-superstructure way of formulating the relationship between ideal and material forces, especially where the “base” is defined as the determination by “the economic” in any simple sense. It prefers the wider formulation—the dialectic between social being and social consciousness: neither separable into its distinct poles (in some alternative formulations, the dialectic between “culture” and “non-culture”). — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 191

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the “culturalist” paradigm via its core commitments: culture interwoven with all social practices, the dialectic of social being and social consciousness, and rejection of base-superstructure framing.
• XREF: Connects to Gramscian conceptions of culture and to the Marxism-vs-cultural-studies debates the reader is tracking.