Introduction: Triumph of Culture, Troubles of Anthropology

Abstract

Culture has always been the defining feature and disciplinary asset of anthropology. Before the reflective conversations of the 1980s, anthropology had owned culture. In the aftermath of the crisis of anthropology came the expansion and augmentation of culture to disciplines, domains, and settings beyond anthropology. Culture is now present in every aspect of social life and it is possible to buy, sell, design, invent, market, perform, and circulate culture(s) individually or collectively in (in) tangible forms. With the expansion, culture talk-not always in benign variety-has also become the predominant mode of addressing citizenship, security, and even economy, which were conventionally considered to be distinct from culture. This article elucidates this expansive venture of culture from being a disciplinary analytical artifact to an authoritative arbiter of rights, difference, heritage, and style, and suggests projects of culture as an analytical tool to enter into the burdensome territory of culture today, without getting trapped in culture talk.