Cultural geography III: The concept of ‘culture’

Abstract

In my third report I argue that three versions of the concept of culture coexist in cultural geography in the wake of an interest in life and living: culture as assembled effect, culture as mediated experience, and culture as forms-of-life. All three break with one of the versions of culture in the ‘new’ cultural geography – culture as ‘signifying system’ – whilst retaining its focus on processes of mediation. By expanding what counts as ‘life’ and the forms relations take, each version reworks a second concept of culture present in the ‘new cultural geography’ – culture as ‘whole way of life’.