Hybrid Cultural Codes in Nonwestern Civil Society: Images of Women in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Abstract

Scholars have established that cultural codes and styles of expression in civil society must be recognized as informal mechanisms of exclusion, calling into question the possibility of the Habermasian normative ideal of the public sphere. This article joins theoretical discussions of how to remedy this problem. Going beyond Alexander's model of "multicultural incorporation" and borrowing from Sewell's theory of the duality of structure, we develop a theoretical framework of code hybridization to conceptualize how civil society participants achieve civil solidarity amid multiple, potentially contradictory cultural legacies. Code hybridization is a process whereby social actors not only incorporate the cultural codes of subordinate groups into the public sphere, but in doing so also potentially transform dominant codes. We conceptualize code hybridization in terms of three analytic steps: enlargement of the terrains of signification; reinterpretation of codes; and mixing of schemas. The resulting hybridized schemas and frameworks are particularly useful cultural tools for developing visions of civil inclusiveness for young, unstable civil societies. Using a brief comparative study of the representation of women in political cartoons in Hong Kong and Taiwan, we offer a concrete example of code hybridization-a process linking the codes of liberty and caring while producing alternative and more inclusive narratives during moments of political agitation.

The Tension Between Cultural Codes in South Korean Civil Society: The Case of the Electronic National Identification Card

“…He suggests that even though the tensions between the discourse of liberty and that of affection are intrinsic and systemic, these two universal discourses may remain complementary in a contemporary society. Similarly, Lo and Fan (2010), in a study on the representation of women in political cartoons in Hong Kong and Taiwan, show that multiple codes, such as liberty and caring, co-exist but can incorporate and interact with each other. Unlike Baiocchi and Ku, they find that the negative side of one code can be paired with the positive side of another.…”

“…In short, a few extensions of Alexander’s framework were applied to non-Western societies. For example, in an East Asian context, Ku (2000, 2001) and Lo and Fan (2010) conduct analyses on Hong Kong, a society with significant distinguishing features, including being a developed capitalistic former British colony with an East–West mixed culture. However, many Asian societies have undergone the transition toward a democratized and industrialized society and feature state-led socioeconomic development and a traditional Confucian culture.…”

“…This article applies a late-Durkheimian theoretical framework to analyze the symbolic conflict between civil and non-civil spheres. Many studies using a late-Durkheimian perspective have demonstrated that cultural codes are deployed to motivate and guide action and speech in civil society (Alexander & Smith, 1993; Baiocchi, 2006; Edles, 1995; Jacobs, 1996, 1998, 1999; Ku, 2001; Lo and Fan, 2010; Lockwood, 1996; Rabinovitch, 2001; Smith, 1991, 1998). Symbolic codes are significant in constructing ‘the very sense of society for those who are within and without’ (Alexander, 1992a: 290) and are used to divide people through processes of inclusion and exclusion.…”

Symbolic action and constraint: the cultural logic of the 2017 UK General Election

“…Allied cultural sociological concepts have been developed in order to account for the power that codes and narratives hold over determining the success or failure of action, as well as how such action can itself reshape such codes and narratives. It has been shown, for instance, how narratives can become inflated, deflated, reclassified, deconstructed (Smith 1994 , 2005 ), and inverted (Acevedo et al 2010 ) in public dramas, how cultural codes are frequently hybridised (Lo and Fan 2010 ; Baiocchi 2012 ; Guana 2016), and how contentious political performances often draw their power from condensing or displacing (rather than necessarily conforming to) dominant culture structures (Gauna 2018 ). The notion of ‘code-rerouting’ introduced in this paper intends to capture both sides of this ‘structuring’ and ‘structured’ dynamic.…”

Civil Society and Gender Relations in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes

“…7 Poland: see for example Fuchs (2003Fuchs ( , 2013; Bulgaria: Luleva (2006); Croatia: Kunovich and Deitelbaum (2004); Croatia and Serbia: Grsak et al (2007); South Africa: Hirschmann (1998); Hassim and Gous (1998); Botswana: Cailleba and Kumar (2010); India: Berglund (2011), Datta (2007), Gibson (2012), Kilby (2011), MCDuie Ra (2007, Unterhalter and Dutt (2001); Philippines: Reese (2010); Taiwan: Chang (2009) and Lo and Fan (2010); South Korea: Ruhlen (2007); Mexico : Brickner (2006: Brickner ( , 2010: Brickner ( , 2013, Marquardt (2005), and Reininger et al (2013).…”