The world is becoming increasingly more interconnected and as it does societies become more complex as well. Globalization, multiculturalism, schisms within society, subcultures, and polarizing issues all come together to create a multilayered society of competing factions, ideals, values, beliefs, religious identities, political and social identities, and cultures. We see this happening all over in the West, and even here in Australia we see this clashing of divergent cultures.
These conflicting ideologies within a single national geographic area have made it increasingly difficult for policy makers to understand these different factions and to create policy which serves the greatest number of people. Traditional sources of knowledge and guidance, particularly academia are incapable of addressing these multitudinous elements of modern society due to their own insular natures and specialization.
Cultural studies however, with its multitudinous approach, if it can reorient itself within the context of an ever evolving society, stands in the unique position of being able to contribute significantly in a pragmatic way to facilitating policy makers abilities to resolve modern issues within society between disparate groups of citizens. Modern society is becoming less homogenous not only in terms of race, religion, and ideologies, but also in terms of various subcultures and the intertwining of various non cultural attributes.
Similarly, as values within society shift, so too are there complexities that must be understood and handled. Society has become less stable and more of an evolving and fluid landscape of competing cultural identities. Whites versus minorities, minorities versus other minorities, religious versus other religious, religious versus secular, natives versus immigrants, progressives versus conservatives, and ombinations and fragmentations within each of these groups have made our modern world a difficult one to understand, navigate, and meld into a cohesive whole. It is within this clashing of these divergent groups and fracturing of traditional mores and social cohesiveness that many of the problems facing society today are borne.
It is becoming apparent that “… a sense of cultural crisis is evident everywhere around the globe.. [and a] growing uncertainty about the shape of the new world disorder in the twenty-first century… culture” has become an increasingly intense and multidimensional “site of struggle” in this complex, postmodern world” (Ang, n. d. ). So too does the microcosm of Australia reflect these larger global crisis and disordering of society. Most of the problems within society today are considered in an only cursory manner and solutions to the various issues serve more as a temporary salve than as in depth solutions which seek to address the underlying issues of social discord.
These superficial solutions are what hold many an academic discipline back from playing a more pragmatic role in offering tangible benefits to society at large. As society becomes increasingly more complex, superficial analysis and temporary solutions lead to “… a cultural deadlock in need of specific, cultural interventions–interventions which illuminate the constitutive role of meaning, representation, and value in the diagnosis and management of social environments” (Ang, n. d. ). However, cultural studies, with its focus on “… he interplay between lived experience, texts or discourses, and the social context” (Saukko, 2003) is uniquely in a position to offer what other academic disciplines on policy makers on their own cannot, a depth of understanding of the various components which contribute to the complexity of modern society. Ang (n. d. ) states that cultural studies can “… provide a bridge between the academic world and the social world “out there” and a “form of applied humanities”. She believes that cultural studies needs to justify its existence, to offer practical knowledge to society, to be pragmatic, and be utilitarian in its production of knowledge.
Specifically, cultural studies needs to focus more on Mode 2 production of knowledge, that of practical utility and less on Mode 1 of knowledge production with its focus on academic foundations. Cultural studies can achieve this. With its traditional interest in “… the interplay between lived experience, texts or discourses, and the social context” (Saukko, 2003) cultural studies can approach the complexities of intercultural and interracial issues by offering a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the different factors involved.
Similarly, the adaptability and multifaceted nature of cultural studies make it capable of researching complex modern social issues and helping to create solutions and understanding based on a more in depth analysis of the various interdependent parts. Likewise, the practice of cultural studies on combining humanism, new leftist Marxism, and structuralism has allowed it to explore beyond traditional social research (Saukko, 2003) which still holds value today as society grows more complicated.
Similarly, combining different methodologies in studies has given cultural studies a greater understanding of cultural issues. Additionally, cultural studies has also begun to accept the notion of multiple validities, or the idea that different studies on the same subject may reflect different data and knowledge, due to the particular dichotomy of cultural studies as simultaneously both within and without culture but all being equally valid.
This is of particular value in an increasingly multicultural society in which multiple perspectives and consideration of multiple views of the interrelatedness of society can offer a greater breadth of understanding than one perspective alone. More importantly however, as society and the world have become increasingly more complex, so too has cultural studies as a discipline evolved, maintaining its aptitude for complexity while devising new methodologies and frameworks for researching and understanding the world.
New methodologies such as new ethnography, genealogical research, and analysis of globalization and the continuing classical approach of cultural studies to combining elements of these different methodologies such as with triangulation, prisms, material semiotics, and methodological dialogues (Saukko, 2003) all offer cultural studies a multitude of different approaches and combinations of approaches with which to investigate the increasingly intricate social world of competing, disparate cultures and interests.
It is this complexity and multifaceted approach to subject matter that gives cultural studies a unique ability to play a decisive role in modern society As society becomes less homogenous and policy makers are faced with these competing cultures, each comprised of shifting, ever evolving elements, traditional academic disciplines with their rigidity and focus on a single point are inadequate for grasping something as slippery as modern society.
As Saukko states, “… reality does not hold still, but is amoeba like, multifaceted, evolving, looking different from different angles… ” (Saukko, 2003, p. 24). Likewise, the context within which other humanities disciplines approach research, as something outside of and apart from that which they are studying makes them insufficient for tackling the nebulousness of existing within the very thing one is researching.
Cultural studies however, approaches its subject with the dichotomous understanding of being both within society and an observer of said society. Cultural research, as Ang prefers to call it, is further able to offer to policy makers a more ‘insider’s perspective’ as its Mode 2 production of knowledge takes place from within and as a part of society rather than as an outsider detached from the subject.
Lastly, cultural studies stands to offer policy makers a greater degree of information by which they can make informed decisions regarding the convoluted nature of modern society by virtue of being multifaceted. Another practice that sets cultural research apart from its fellow humanities disciplines is both in its willingness to combine multiple methodologies in order to get a clearer and more detailed picture of the various interlocking aspects of cultural issues, as well as its willingness o reach beyond its own borders to collaborate with other disciplines to further broaden its research in more of a transdisciplinary approach. In order to meet the growing need for utilitarian based Mode 2 knowledge production to contribute in a meaningful way to society, cultural studies needs to embrace its ambiguity and not get mired in the discomfort of needing to clearly establish itself with an exacting definition, set of established methodologies, and narrow criteria of what constitutes ‘good’ research.
It is the very ambiguity and fluidity of cultural studies, particularly in terms of its different approaches, multi-disciplinary background, and multiple methodologies which allows for cultural studies to examine in depth the complexity of modern social issues and to help devise solutions that address the underlying intercultural aspects of these issues. As Ang (2006) argues, “… uch of the energy, versatility and critical edge of cultural studies has been derived precisely from its ‘undisciplined theoretical and methodological eclecticism, providing the space for researchers and students to flexibly ‘mak[e] it up as they go along” and it is this flexibility and adaptability which allows for cultural studies to research complex society.
Rather than seeking to ameliorate this ambiguity, cultural researchers should embrace it, much like Ang’s (n. . ) suggestion of the necessity of open ended questions, as both serve to facilitate the necessary adaptability and fluidity necessary for today’s world. In an increasingly complex and ever evolving world of competing cultural differences and clashing multiculturalistic differences only a discipline as multifaceted and complex itself can hope to understand and offer policy makers the type of information and knowledge necessary for them to guide the modern world.