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4 Yet not only do cultural theorists value popular forms of cultural expression, but they also conceive culture in a particular way: as a terrain marked by difference and contest. , 1992), out of which emerges an interest in relations of power, ideology and resistance (Barker and Beezer, 1992). The interconnections between culture and power hinge on a dialectic of whether culture is imposed on people ‘from above’ or whether people participate in the construction of cultural meanings themselves (Agger, 1992; Barker and Beezer, 1992).

The third area of focus lies on the notion of consumption. This strand emerges from literary reception studies, which assert that understanding is always from the position of the reader: hence audiences are actively involved in the creation of meaning through their engagement with cultural formations (Barker, 2000). Yet, although this approach potentially offers a fruitful examination of how people actively make sense of the cultural products with which they engage, it draws less on the culturalist (and therefore experiential) mode of enquiry advocated by Hoggart and Williams than on the structuralist preoccupation with the uses, meanings and values that ‘readers’ invest in cultural texts.

The implication is that the field of cultural studies is trapped in an undiscriminating vacuum and returns to arguments (discussed in Chapter 1) that populism has left researchers in the value-free domain of an apolitical relativism. Excavating these key theoretical and methodological approaches within cultural studies reveals how analytical frameworks reflect their own value systems, which offer both uses and limitations in the conduct of scholarly research. Throughout Chapter 3, in which I explore definitions of popular dance, and Chapter 4, in which I critique how the field of dance studies engages with popular dance practice, I continue to make reference to these distinct intellectual approaches.