World-systems analysis (WSA) understands socio-cultural phenomena as fundamental to the operation of global capitalism, whether through geocultures that sustain centrist liberalism, the emergence of capitalist subjectivities, or by generating structures of knowledge that bound political possibilities. Nonetheless, many scholars critique WSA’s treatment of culture as reductive and epiphenomenal. How can we theorize culture’s relationship to global capitalism without assuming that culture merely “dupes” participants into reproducing exploitative structures? In this article, we offer a critical evaluation of WSA’s treatment of culture and argue that its alleged failings can be ameliorated by adopting a cultural political economy (CPE) framework, an analytical approach that has developed separately from WSA. To do so, we outline WSA’s major theorizations of culture; namely, its discussion of global geocultures and structures of knowledge. Departing from existing critiques of WSA, we discuss the applicability of CPE, which examines how discourses both influence and are shaped by the material world. Using anti-systemic movements, populism, and race-making in the world-system as examples, we demonstrate how a CPE-oriented approach permits WSA to address its major cultural critiques. Broadly, we call for a theoretical co-mixing of CPE and WSA, allowing researchers to address the alleged cultural failings of world-systems scholarship.
The year 2019 was the year of “OK Boomer” (OKb). From The New York Times to the New Zealand legislature, OKb emerged as a pop cultural phenomenon. For some, this phrase represents a battle of the generations wherein Baby Boomers are fed up with the utopian demands of younger generations, while younger generations see Baby Boomers as stubbornly conservative and out of touch. Alternatively, some dismiss the generational warfare trope and demand we see society for what it “really is”—one defined by class warfare. By deploying theories of politics, ideology, and cultural change from Mark Fisher, Fredric Jameson, Slavoj Žižek, and Franco Berardi, we offer a theoretical framework through which the emergence and proliferation of OKb can be understood. We find OKb to be embedded within the logic of capitalist realism, where younger generations’ cynical usage of this meme represents a muddled attempt to cognitively map within 21st century postmodernity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.