One
of Emile Durkheim's primary occupations was with his notion of collective
consciousness. Durkheim understands culture as the mutual ability to perceive reality
in a certain manner. For Durkheim culture is the first and foremost medium
through which a collective entity presents itself to itself and gains a sense
of its own existence.
Durkheim
argued that culture maintains these functions through collective
representations and classificatory systems. Collective representations are symbols
and rituals which express values and meanings common for a social group
(Durkheim famously gives the example of the Totem pole). Classificatory systems
are ways in which social life are regulated and "wrongs" and "rights"
established. According to Durkheim, classificatory systems define subjects such
as the family and kinship, collective time and space and what will be
considered as sanctified.
Durkheim
stressed the functional role of culture and studied the structure of culture's
engagement with society. And this Durkheim is justly associated with structuralism. Durkheim viewed a given culture's content as something which is
collectively formed and that only exists collectively. There is no one person
which creates culture and every one of us takes part in a culture (or cultures)
which constructs conditions and positions him. In this sense, for Durkheim,
culture exists externally from any single person; it exists objectively in the
form of objects, symbolism rituals, texts and so on.
Durkheim
widely influenced the fields of sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. His
approach continues to occupy a prominent position and influence in contemporary
cultural research, as it did throughout the 20th century, even with structuralism
slightly falling out of grace in certain academic currents. Such research which
follows the tradition Durkheim initiated focuses on social structures (and "social facts") which
generate perceived solidarity and the manner in which rituals, faith, memory
and other cultural sites function within culture.