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This thought-provoking volume, edited by Doris Sommer, is the result of a multi-year project that was funded by the Ford Foundation and asked scholars based across the United States and Latin America to engage with the concept of cultural agency and to think through its meanings and implications in their work. The collection contains a critical introduction by Sommer, 14 essays and two Afterwords. The essays are divided into three sections: 'Media', 'Maneuvers' and 'Cautions'. The contributors come from a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, though the majority are based in anthropology or media studies.
The epigraph that opens the Introduction suggests that 'culture is the area in which humanist values are created and established' (p. 1). Sommer then sets out to create a framework to understand the concept of cultural agency, who cultural agents are, and where they are located. The book identifies cultural agency 'as a range of social contributions through creative practices' (p. 1). The approach advocated follows the Gramscian tradition of not waiting for perfect conditions or transformations and instead finding what Sommer terms the 'wiggle room' that opens up spaces for subjects to...