The 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 movement, the postmigrant movement, and a far-right group called GRECE. The book asks what culture meant for the movements and when and why activists evoked the concept. Two overall trends shaped concepts of culture during the period of investigation. First, decolonization as an intellectual and political development redefined political key concepts such as culture. Second, change through culture replaced visions in which the state was the central instrument for political change. At the same time, specific surrounding contexts, such as legal, financial, and cultural resources, the movements’ sociologies, and the political environments with their dominant discourses, potential allies, and enemies shaped the intellectual histories of the political movements. By studying political movements as production sites of a concept, the book connects intellectual history to political and social history. It studies intellectual labor beyond famous individuals and as much in practice as in theory.