Abstract

MAIER, Elizabeth. Dispute of the cultural meanings hegemony: Bodies, emerging players and new citizenships. Culturales [online]. 2014, vol.2, n.2, pp.63-79. ISSN 2448-539X.

The underlying theme of this essay deals with the contemporary dispute for cultural meanings, or what others have called the culture war, over abortion and gay marriage. This growing global confrontation around reproductive choice and sexual preferences takes place within the historical-structural context of the transition between two models of capitalist accumulation and development. The shift from industrial modernity to postindustrial times has interrogated such elemental aspects of modernity as: the definition of personhood; the notion of citizenship; the limits between public and private; the relationship between church and state; and the nature of the national project. In this article I propose to identify the complexity of the theme, define the actual historical and structural context in which the dispute has intensified, and put forward a conceptual framework that allows a deeper understanding of the issue.

Keywords : dispute; abortion; gay marriage; postindustrial cultural meaning.