ABSTRACT
According to the influential work of Raymond Williams ‘culture’ refers variously to ‘a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development; … the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity’ and to ‘particular way of life’. It was the third of these definitions – culture as a way of life – that gained currency in cultural studies, and the related field of cultural policy studies. Indeed, this expanded understanding of culture provided a language for talking about sites of struggle and forms of inequality that were cultural rather than economic. It also articulated with a democratic impulse to move away from narrowly conceived ideas of culture as ‘art’ to embrace and value a range of creative practices and forms from the popular to the multicultural. Significantly, too, this definitional shift also made it possible to conceptualize culture as also encompassing dynamic and pervasive processes.
