Politics of Culture

The book analyzes how three political movements used the concept of culture in France between the late 1960s and the early 1980s: the women's liberation movement, “immigrant” movements, and a far-right movement around the group GRECE. What did culture mean to the movements and when and why did they use the concept? The book discusses intellectual labor beyond well-known thinkers in both the practice and the theory of political activists. It helps readers understand the high-brow debates around the culture wars and the cultural turn as part of a larger societal trend that surpasses the academic field. It offers historical explanations beyond academia because of its focus on primary sources from quotidian political struggles. Two contexts shaped concepts of culture in society more broadly. First, decolonization as an intellectual and political development redefined political key concepts such as culture. Second, change through culture replaced earlier visions in which the state was seen as the central instrument for political change. Methodologically, the book treats political movements as production sites of concepts, thereby, connecting intellectual history with political and social history.