From Codes to Repertoires: Some persistent atavisms around the culture concept and a proposal for reformulation

Abstract

The anthropological debates around the concept of culture have brought about several conceptual refinements that implied a rebuilding and revitalization of this central notion for the social sciences. However, due to the sedimented weight of a double-pronged tradition of grammatical and juridical inspiration, many of the attributes brought into question by anthropological critique survive in the ever-present notion of “code”, which introduces by sleight-of-hand an anachronic version of the culture concept with deleterious effects for social science research. On that basis, the following text attempts to show under which circumstances, why and how this survival of the classic concept of culture still holds its ground in contemporary anthropology, and to propose the replacement of this atavistic notion of code for a conceptual toolbox and an analytical and descriptive lexicon that strives to incorporate the accumulated benefits of the last three decades of scholarly debate.