Popular Culture: A Comparative Study of Venezuela and Mexico (completed)

This doctoral thesis asks what kind of entities are states, and how they are best conceptualized. The project aims to contribute to the debate on the state under the era of globalization by using a perspective from popular culture to analyze the cases of Venezuela and Mexico.

About the project

The project is a part of Cultural transformations in the age of globalization (Kultrans). Its aim is to understand the nature of the changes that states undergo, a pertinent question is how popular narratives tell the story of the state. How do these narratives affect the state’s legitimacy? This study partakes in a growing scholarship that calls for theoretical approaches to statehood that abandons the static analysis inherent in traditional ideal-typical approaches.

Objectives

The aim is to bring “the state back in without leaving the people out” (James Scott). The project proposes that popular culture provides an illuminating perspective for such research. Popular culture is one avenue where social change plays itself out, and an entry point to look at the relationship or boundary between state and society in Mexico and Venezuela.

Financing

This project is funded by the Faculty of Humanities as a part of KULTRANS.

Published Sep. 20, 2011 10:59 AM - Last modified Sep. 11, 2019 11:52 AM