Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics - Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Hooks, Bell. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990.

Yearning is a collection of essays, which discuss and recognise key debates in the politics of race and gender, such as the lack of representation of black women, and cultural politics bringing to light cultural ignorance and stereotypes of said black women. Bell Hooks also refers to this idea of ‘social identity’ being formed and affected by the power of media representation. She takes a passage out of the ‘Cultural politics in contemporary America’ stating that ‘we also identify and construct ourselves as social beings through the mediation of image’ hence why changes in black responses to media must be discussed to truly understand the ways in which black liberation struggles and most importantly patriarchy is affected by media.

Longhurst, Brian. “Culture, Power, Globalisation and Inequality”. In Introducing Cultural Studies, edited by Brian Lonhurst, Greg Smith, Gaynor Bagnall, Garry Crawford, Miles Ogborn, Elaine Baldwin and Scott McCracken, 58-76. Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008.

Within this chapter the social, economic and cultural significance of globalisation is discussed with globalisation being defined as ‘the spread of economies, cultures and power across national boarders’. In social terms globalisation, through technological advances, has over time compressed the distance between people and places which has led to an increase in the sense that ‘we live in a single world’. The author then goes to explain how this view of a ‘single world’ has led to a fear of the decline of the importance of the local. Economically, globalisation has resulted in huge flows of income between different foreign exchange markets ultimately leading to a sense of global interdependence. The author then provides examples of companies; Microsoft, Nike, McDonalds etc. which have adopted global strategies and have an annual turnover larger than national economies alone. In addition, the author suggests that globalisation and the expansion of the capitalist system has resulted in an unequal distribution of wealth and power within and between societies.  Finally, the chapter considers how theorists such as Karl Marx, Weber etc. have tried to explain how culture contributes to the production and maintenance of inequality in the world.