C.

Theory and the empirical

In cultural studies, this opposition has often surfaced in polemics around structuralism,
postmodernism and empiricism (see, for example, Edward P. Thompson, 1978), but the issues
are important generally in the human sciences.
In rationalist or theory-led epistemologies, knowledge depends on the framework of categories
that selects the questions posed. There are kinds of empirical in cultural studies:
 Empirical objections
- It is easy to see why Althusserian and similar epistemologies are a provocation to
those who hold to strongly empirical forms of research. Similarly, the symptom or
anomaly that stimulates critique and can transform what Kuhn calls ‘normal science’
is a textual or conceptual event, not an event in the world outside the text.
 Empiricist difficulties
- In terms of cultural theory, conceptually led epistemologies are a form of cultural
determinism. Yet many objections to an Althusserian method have themselves
depended on notions of fact and evidence that are reductionist in that they ignore
or underestimate the relational dynamics between researcher and researched and
their mutual entanglements in cultural forms.
 The empirical as other
- We would argue, against Althusser, that change in a framework may not be so
complete or sudden as his notion of ‘epistemological rupture’ prescribes, though
moments of realization do often seem sudden. They may be based, however, on a
slower accretion of empirically based knowledge that erodes the credibility of old
frameworks.

D. Reading for theory as a method

Reading for theory is a method that corresponds to this process of mapping. It involves not only
identifying theoretical approaches around the topics that we choose to study but also engaging
with them, thinking them through or critiquing them. It is here that the idea of theory as
‘problematic’ or organizing framework is useful in practice.
A critical reading will seek to identify the standpoint of the authors or speakers and trace the
conceptual framework that underpins the key questions and how this framework affects the
substantive account. One of the limits of the Althusserian version of theory, however, is that it is
insensitive to the historical character of concepts and social circumstances of their production
that shape and limit their use. Any theoretical problematic, like any literary genre, is both a
formal structure and an historical event. After that time, it was no longer possible to think of the
extension of state schooling as fairly automatic and necessarily progressive. All theoretical
approaches have a history and geographical, social, temporal and conceptual conditions of
existence.

E. The argument so far

So far, we have seen that theory is understood differently within different epistemologies and
each version has implications for practice. Traditional humanistic approaches uphold theory as
curiosity and openness against pressures towards the short term and utilitarian.
In strongly empirical epistemologies, theory is mainly limited to a question-posing function – the
real knowledge being extracted, it is often not clear how, from source, evidence or fact.
However, we locate our version of cultural studies mainly on the ground of praxis, where theory
and politics, conceptualization and engagement with others are all aspects of research activity.