Culture Troubles: Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning

Chabal and Daloz's argument is one based on an analysis of culture understood as a system of meanings rather than as values. Hence, the authors offer a methodology that grounds political analysis in the interpretation of what 'makes sense' to the people concerned. Their approach, which resists the tyranny of particularisms but instead proposes a different 'scientific' method, draws upon a wide range of political, sociological and anthropological sources. It demonstrates how an interpretative framework can be heuristically fruitful in the study of politics. Chabal and Daloz illustrate the analytical acuity of this method with a comparative study of the state and political representation in three very different settings: France, Nigeria and Sweden.