Cultural Studies and the teaching of citizenship: analysing posters about the Aegean refugee drama
Date Issued
June 2017
Abstract
In this study three posters made by the graphic artist and Ass. Professor Aspasia Papadima
(2016) are analysed in the context of modern and postmodern historical literacy. The trilogy of posters deals with the refugee drama that takes place in the Aegean as the result of the
war in Syria and the human need for survival. The aim is to use the posters as an aid to
teach our students the current concept of citizenship through the specific material for the
immigrants in Aegean Sea, within the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies which draws
from many different subject areas, including sociology, anthropology, political science, and
history. Although it is sometimes misunderstood as being the study of popular culture,
cultural studies are, in fact, the study of the ways in which culture is constructed and
organized and the ways in which it evolves and changes over time. More specifically, our
project focuses on the need of the artist to communicate through graphic pictorials, events
that she considers to be of focal point in modern history of mankind. Analysis draws on
Marshall’s classic social-democratic agenda, the aim of which was to reduce class inequality.
The growing concern with cultural citizenship and identity reflects, to some extent, how
issues that were once considered ‘social’ came increasingly to be thought of as ‘cultural’.
Questions of identity and belonging have superseded questions of material entitlement in
much social and cultural theory as well as in public policy and cultural politics (McGuigan
2004, 34). Following Raymond Williams’s (1984) distinction between cultural policy ‘proper’
(public patronage of the arts, media regulation, and construction of cultural identity), and
cultural policy as display (national aggrandisement and economic reductionism) and the
specifics of the Aegean refugee drama, lead us to consider cultural policy-making among the
members of the European Union.
(2016) are analysed in the context of modern and postmodern historical literacy. The trilogy of posters deals with the refugee drama that takes place in the Aegean as the result of the
war in Syria and the human need for survival. The aim is to use the posters as an aid to
teach our students the current concept of citizenship through the specific material for the
immigrants in Aegean Sea, within the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies which draws
from many different subject areas, including sociology, anthropology, political science, and
history. Although it is sometimes misunderstood as being the study of popular culture,
cultural studies are, in fact, the study of the ways in which culture is constructed and
organized and the ways in which it evolves and changes over time. More specifically, our
project focuses on the need of the artist to communicate through graphic pictorials, events
that she considers to be of focal point in modern history of mankind. Analysis draws on
Marshall’s classic social-democratic agenda, the aim of which was to reduce class inequality.
The growing concern with cultural citizenship and identity reflects, to some extent, how
issues that were once considered ‘social’ came increasingly to be thought of as ‘cultural’.
Questions of identity and belonging have superseded questions of material entitlement in
much social and cultural theory as well as in public policy and cultural politics (McGuigan
2004, 34). Following Raymond Williams’s (1984) distinction between cultural policy ‘proper’
(public patronage of the arts, media regulation, and construction of cultural identity), and
cultural policy as display (national aggrandisement and economic reductionism) and the
specifics of the Aegean refugee drama, lead us to consider cultural policy-making among the
members of the European Union.
Subjects