From Cultural Criminology to Cultural Realism

Abstract

Over the past three decades we have witnessed what has been referred to as the ‘cultural turn’. Culture, which was once seen as a secondary derivative of the ‘economic base’, has now come to assume a central place in sociological thinking, while the economic is either marginalised or subsumed under the cultural umbrella (Ray and Sayer 1999). The growing preoccupation with culture has been associated with the declining influence internationally of Marxism and the growth of postmodernism, as well as with an increased interest in debates about identity, recognition and diversity.