ABSTRACT
As the editors of this volume note in their introduction, something about international political economy (IPE) feels incomplete. This feeling is both evident and subtle: the anomalies and antinomies of current restructurings of the global economy appear most clearly when presented or experienced through the daily social practices of meaning, of consumption, of habit. One of the promises that the cultural turn makes to students of IPE is to ‘bring back (?) in’ these areas of social life in order to produce better accounts of global restructuring. However, what value does culture add to our analyses; why turn to culture? Certainly, to add this ‘dimension’ to our studies will give more complete descriptions of the global political economy as constituted through social practice. But how does culture deepen or strengthen our analyses?
