ABSTRACT
Both world culture theorists and their interlocutors make frequent reference to the concept of culture – specifically to ‘world culture’ or ‘global culture’ on the one hand (e.g. Lechner and Boli 2005), and to ‘national culture’ on the other (e.g. Schriewer 2004). But what does ‘culture’ mean? Anthropologists, for whom the culture concept is central, used to define culture as the property of a group, that is, the beliefs and patterns of behaviour typical of a particular society (Baldwin et al. 2006). However, in recent decades anthropologists have moved away from that simple definition. Moreover, the majority of anthropologists write about culture at the local level, raising the question of what a concept as sweeping as ‘world culture’ or even as ‘national culture’ might mean. Meanwhile, the general population has embraced anthropology’s traditional, over-simple definition of culture, readily using it to stereotype and exoticise other people and even to mask talk about race – to the point that some anthropologists seek to abandon the term ‘culture’ altogether (e.g. Abu-Lughod 1991; Gonza´lez 1999).
