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Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies Author(S): Ann Swidler Source: American Sociological Review, Vol Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies Author(s): Ann Swidler Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 51, No. 2, (Apr., 1986), pp. 273-286 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095521 Accessed: 21/07/2008 02:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org CULTURE IN ACTION: SYMBOLS AND STRATEGIES* ANN SWIDLER StanfordUniversity Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture inde- pendently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action. The reigning model used to understand cul- cultural practices such as language, gossip, ture's effects on action is fundamentallymis- stories, and ritualsof daily life. These symbolic leading. It assumes that culture shapes action forms are the means through which "social by supplying ultimate ends or values toward processes of sharing modes of behavior and which action is directed, thus making values outlook within [a] community" (Hannerz, the central causal element of culture. This 1969:184)take place. paper analyzes the conceptual difficulties into The recent resurgenceof culturalstudies has which this traditionalview of cultureleads and skirtedthe causal issues of greatest interest to offers an alternativemodel. sociologists. Interpretive approaches drawn Among sociologists and anthropologists,de- from anthropology (Clifford Geertz, Victor bate has raged for several academic genera- Turner, Mary Douglas, and Claude Levi- tions over defining the term "culture." Since Strauss)and literarycriticism (Kenneth Burke, the seminal work of Clifford Geertz (1973a), RolandBarthes) allow us better to describe the the older definitionof cultureas the entire way features of culturalproducts and experiences. of life of a people, includingtheir technology Pierre Bourdieuand Michel Foucault have of- and materialartifacts, or that (associated with fered new ways of thinkingabout culture's re- the name of WardGoodenough) as everything lationship to social stratification and power. one would need to know to become a func- For those interested in cultural explanation tioning member of a society, have been dis- (as opposed to "thick description" [Geertz, placed in favor of defining culture as the pub- 1973a]or interpretivesocial science [Rabinow licly available symbolic forms through which and Sullivan, 1979]), however, values remain people experience and express meaning (see the majorlink between cultureand action. This Keesing, 1974). For purposes of this paper, is not because sociologists really believe in the culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of values paradigm. Indeed, it has been thor- meaning, includingbeliefs, ritualpractices, art oughly criticized.' But without an alternative forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal formulation of culture's causal significance, scholars either avoid causal questions or admit * the values paradigmthrough the back door. Address all correspondence to: Ann Swidler, The alternativeanalysis of culture proposed Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. here consists of three steps. First, it offers an A muchearlier version of this paperwas presented image of culture as a "tool kit" of symbols, at the AnnualMeetings of the AmericanSociological stories, rituals, and world-views, which people Association, September1982. For helpfulcomments may use in varyingconfigurations to solve dif- (includingdissents) on earlier drafts and thoughtful ferent kinds of problems. Second, to analyze discussion of the issues raised here, I would like to culture's causal effects, it focuses on "strate- thank Robert Bellah, Bennett Berger, Robert Bell, gies of action," persistent ways of ordering Ross Boylan, Jane Collier, Paul DiMaggio, Frank action through time. Third, it sees culture's Dobbin,James Fernandez,Claude Fischer, Elihu M. causal significance not in defining ends of ac- Gerson, Wendy Griswold, Ron Jepperson, Susan Krieger,Tormod Lunde, John Meyer, John Padgett, tion, but in providingcultural components that RichardA. Peterson, JonathanRieder, Theda Skoc- are used to construct strategies of action. pol, Peter Stromberg, Steven Tipton, R. Stephen Warner, Morris Zelditch, Jr., and two anonymous I See Blakeand Davis (1964)and the empiricaland reviewers. theoreticalcritique in Cancian (1975). American Sociological Review, 1986, Vol. 51 (April:273-286) 273 274 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW The paper proceeds, first, by outlining the Parsons substitutedglobal, ahistorical values. failures of cultural explanation based on Unlike ideas, which in Weber's sociology are values. It then arguesfor the superiorintuitive complex historicalconstructions shaped by in- plausibility and explanatory adequacy of the stitutionalinterests, political vicissitudes, and alternativemodel. Finally, it suggests research pragmatic motives, Parsonian values are ab- approachesbased on seeing culturein this new stract, general, and immanent in social sys- way. tems. Social systems exist to realize their core values, and values explain why differentactors make different choices even in similar situa- AS VALUES CULTURE tions. Indeed, Parsons does not treat values as Our underlying view of culture derives from concrete symbolic elements (like doctrines, Max Weber. For Weber, human beings are rituals, or myths) which have histories and can motivatedby ideal and materialinterests. Ideal actually be studied. Rather, values are es- interests, such as the desire to be saved from sences aroundwhich societies are constituted. the torments of hell, are also ends-oriented, They are the unmoved mover in the theory of except that these ends are derived from sym- action. bolic realities.2 In Weber's (1946a [1922- Parsons'"voluntaristic theory of action" de- 3]:280) famous "switchmen"metaphor: scribes an actor who makes choices in a situa- tion, choices limited by objective conditions Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, and governed by normative regulation of the directlygovern men's conduct. Yet very fre- means and ends of action (Warner, 1978:121). been quently the "world images" that have A "cultural tradition," according to Parsons created by "ideas" have, like switchmen, (1951:11-12), provides "value orientations,"a determinedthe tracksalong which action has "value" defined as "an element of a shared of interest. been pushed by the dynamic symbolic system which serves as a criterionor Interests are the engine of action, pushing it standardfor selection among the alternatives along, but ideas define the destinationshuman of orientationwhich are intrinsicallyopen in a beings seek to reach (inner-worldly versus situation." Culture thus affects human action other-worldly possibilities of salvation, for through values that direct it to some ends example) and the means for getting there rather than others. (mystical versus ascetic techniques of salva- The theory of values survives in part, no tion). doubt, because of the intuitive plausibility in Talcott Parsonsadopted Weber's model, but our own culture of the assumptionthat all ac- bluntedits explanatorythrust. To justify a dis- tion is ultimately governed by some means- tinctive role for sociology in face of the ends schema. Culture shapes action by defin- economist's model of rational, interest- ing what people want. maximizingactors, Parsons arguedthat within What people want, however, is of little help a means-ends schema only sociology could in explainingtheir action. To understandboth account for the ends actors pursued.3 For the pervasiveness and the inadequacy of cul- Weber's interest in the historicalrole of ideas, tural values as explanations, let us examine one recent debate in which "culture"has been 2 In The Sociology of Religion (1963[1922]:1), invoked as a majorcausal variable:the debate Weber insists that "[t]he
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