Séminaire Imaginaire et Société : Émotion, Perception, Créativité – 2015-2016 (2)

Culture and Rationalization: The Impact of a National Foundation

We will discuss about the impact of a major national foundation initiative on a Mexican American community-based cultural arts center located in San Antonio. Its focus concerns what Max Weber has identified as the problem of rationalization. At issue is that the drive for efficiency and rational organization tend to separate people from their own goals and values. Put another way, it addresses the question of what Gramsci identified as the role of the organic intellectual in community. It follows the story of a grass roots community arts organization. Originally set up after the Mexican American civil rights struggle, this community arts center saw the role of culture as connected to the value and identity bases of an emancipatory political project. The dilemma raised by this paper is the following: how can culture workers identify themselves in regard to these two antagonistic functions, substantive versus instrumental?

Key words: Mexican American; rationalization; organic intellectual; community arts organization; ethnic-popular; culture.


Jeffrey A. Halley is Professor of Sociology at The University of Texas at San Antonio, where he directs the Laboratory for the Sociology of the Arts, Culture, and Communications (SACC) of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His research focuses on theory, art, culture, and media. Recent articles concern the problem of the rationalization of culture in the Dada art movement, Mexican American Conjunto music, and the wine industry. In 2010 and 2011 he was Guest Editor of two volumes of Sociologie De l’Art (Sociology of Art), « Théorie/Épistémologie/Littérature » [Theory/Epistemology/Literature], and « Rationalisation et Résistance/Postmodernisme » [Rationalization and Resistance/Postmodernism]. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and guest professor at the universities of Ljubljana, Metz, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France. He was elected President, Research Committee [equivalent to ASA Section] on the Sociology of the Arts, the International Sociological Association.


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