Analyses of Cultural Represenations

My contributions to a methodology of representation analysis that are shaped by the anthropological structuralism of French tradition deal with thematic variants inspired by contemporary topics. They are conceived as methodological foundations of a complex cultural analysis in which texts, images, ideas and artefacts are interpreted as discourses in the context of relationships with power and inequality. Semiological approaches are sought out and tested as methods to meet the methodological demands of complexity that everyday cultures place in the field of tension between individual practice, social norms and market interests in their diversity and ambiguity.

In the past, a social science orientation towards closed and formalist theoretical constructs and methods has not proved to be very effective in ethnological approaches. Rather, an open and reflexive access to various empirically adapted offers of interpretation and their combination has prevailed. The hermeneutics of the qualitative approach to a critically engaged empirical science requires for each topic to develop its own logic of argumentation. Criteria for a scientific approach are object-related, research-field-induced cautiousness and comprehensibility; however, they can are hardly be generalised. Structuralist thinking makes the constructive character of culture visible and analysable. Particularly with regard to dealing with representations, the analyses collected here are intended to clarify both suitability and adaptability as well as the value of semiological methods in cultural studies.