Abstract
Meaning in Action takes up an ambitious and important project, to provide an explanatory framework within which all cultural phenomena can be understood. It is ambitious because it requires a theory of sufficient generality to apply equally across the wide range of cultural structures while being specific enough to provide more than empty truisms. It is important because the study of culture itself is important, and the object of study itself is currently quite mysterious. Meaning in Action would be worth reading for the ambition and importance of its project alone, but Raud’s thorough analysis of the fundamentals of culture make this an extremely worthwhile read, and one that I think may spawn a vital discussion about the basic conceptual structure of culture itself.
At its most general, Raud’s framework divides cultural phenomena into two interacting and internally complex categories: texts and practices. Texts are defined broadly to include all communicable patterns of signification, including not just written texts, but oral histories, architectural blueprints, and the structure of a planned city (pp. 56–57). Texts are divisible into two categories: 1) base texts that fix meanings for most members of a community and so define some element of the community itself, and 2) result texts that present new systems of meaning which vie to be accepted as base texts themselves (p. 56). Practices are repeated activities of cultural agents involving the production, consumption, interpretation, or communication of meanings. Practices are characterized along eight aspects: the function it performs, the goal that it aims to perform, the carriers that are engaged in the practice, the status of the practice itself, the materials involved in the practice, the rules that govern the practice, the means through which the practice is circulated, and the means of preservation and transportation (p. 91).
Raud is a professor of Japanese studies at the Univeristy of Helsinki, and has published on a range of topics including Japanese philosophy, existentialism, and cultural studies. Meaning in Action showcases this breadth through a wide range of examples and nuanced discussion. After a brief introduction and overview of the forthcoming framework, the book progresses in what can be seen as four major sections. The first section lays out the foundation for the framework by demonstrating the need for a theory of culture (Chapter 1) and laying out the concept of meaning that will be critical to the following discussion (Chapter 2). The second section introduces the key elements of the framework, exploring in detail its treatment of text (Chapter 3) and practice (Chapter 4). The fourth section applies the framework to two case studies – the rise of Italian vernacular poetry in the thirteenth century (Chapter 5), and the interaction of art and politics in Eastern Europe in the 1990s (Chapter 6). The book concludes with a review of what has been discussed and a reflection on what is to come. The text requires little background in cultural studies, but features a densely packed and nuanced discussion. I would recommend this book for working professionals and graduate students in cultural studies or related fields, and any scholar interested in understanding culture more precisely. I cannot recommend this book for any but the most advanced undergraduates.
It is difficult to evaluate a framework for understanding basic concepts, but I think that the framework presented in Meaning in Action provides considerable value. Raud, rightly, recommends that the chief criterion should be explanatory power, but the perceived explanatory power of a framework is very much influenced by the other frameworks to which we are already committed. In the face of this challenge, I have found that the degree to which a framework infiltrates thinking about the target phenomenon once it is learned is a useful heuristic to measure the explanatory power of a framework. By this metric, Meaning in Action is a moderate success. The basic framework of textualities and practices has, for me at least, slowly but surely, emerged in my own thinking. I have found the base/result text distinction to be particularly useful, as is the detailed eight-dimensional analysis of practices.
However, the framework does seem to have some explanatory gaps. It provides little theory about the interaction between text and practice, which is arguably where most cultural phenomena live. Particularly, interpretation is critically undertheorized, such that I had trouble fitting hermeneutic engagement with base texts into this framework. For many texts, particularly base texts (such as, religious texts, texts of national law), this interpretive engagement seems both an element of the text and an aspect of practice. The framework would benefit a great deal from detailed theorizing about the dynamic interactions between text and practice, so that we can see culture as a whole rather than one half at a time.
This is not to say that the framework has failed, but that there is work to be done before it is complete. In a sense, I believe that Meaning in Action has succeeded in its own terms, as I suspect it may become a base text of an emerging and badly needed attempt to theorize culture itself. While it has not completely resolved the problems it targeted, it has laid a foundation upon which a more complete framework may ultimately stand. With this in mind, I highly recommend Meaning in Action to those interested in helping to build this framework, as they will find here a foundation from which to engage with it.