Communication, culture and confrontation

Abstract

Positioned at the interface of culture and communication studies, the discourse in the book engages with multiple voices, bringing together academic scholars and grassroot social animators. Exploring seven different popular cultural forms, such as rituals, songs, narratives, calendar art, pamphlets, and so on, through 18 case studies, it goes on to suggest a complex model of communication. In this framework, cultures cannot be viewed as items exchanged in the hegemonic space of global communication. Cultural configurations display themselves as 'evolutive' forms of social communication that weave human beings into collectives and bind these collectives with one another—all permeated with the power parameter. Cultures 'perform' viable collectives when they come to be apprehended in a field of contending forces: a milieu of exchange, encounter, confrontation and possibly conflict.