Cultural Sociology in Perspective: Linking Culture and Power

Cultural sociology aims at incorporating the central role of meaning-making into the analysis of social phenomena. The article presents an overview of cultural sociology, focusing on its main theoretical frameworks, methodological strategies and empirical investigations. The interplay between the cultural and the social and the focus on meaning variations are two central principles of analysis based on which cultural sociologists seek to revitalize the notion of culture in sociology. Since these principles can be combined in different manners, the article compares the two main current approaches to connect cultural codes and social interactions in the symbolical analysis of social phenomena.