Performing Cultural Sociology

The Landscape of Meaning, a Metaphor in Process

“…Finally, I consider one of the possible virtues of the metaphor of landscape of meaning is that it might be useful to have an overview of society-not in terms of a large coherent and totalising system-wherein, despite the apparent presence of different landscapes, they are linked in some way to a more general one, thus providing the idea that there are 'mechanisms' and 'meanings' that connect them. If social actors themselves continually refer to 'society' as something that refers to a set that includes the different areas of life and meaning, cultural sociology has the obligation of establishing what it means to be called society [Cordero 2008], and I think Reed's metaphor can say something about this. This is not an easy task to perform to the extent that there is a tendency linked to certain postmodern thought to think of society as fragmented or, from the point of view from sociology, to consider that society has ceased to exist, as Touraine suggested.…”