Sociology and the Category of Culture: The Problem of Specificity1

This paper examines the relationship between the discursive areas classified under the terms sociology and culture. This relationship is examined in an historical perspective leading up to the modern sociological understanding of culture as articulated through the dominant, Parsonsian originated paradigm. I want to suggest that the success of Parsonsian inflected sociology has had the effect of eliding questions concerned with socio-cultural specificity in favour of a movement towards normative universalisation. One way in which this has been achieved has been through a very particular redefinition of the meaning of culture. One concrete effect of the acceptance of this redefinition has been that the problem of socio-cultural distinctiveness- as, for example, in the case of Australian society- has been hard to formulate let alone come to terms with