Showing papers by "Alan Warde published in 1999"

Consumption and the problem of variety: cultural omnivorousness, social

Abstract: In the light of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper begins by reviewing an argument that Western populations no longer recognise any fixed cultural hierarchy and that, instead, individuals seek knowledge of an increasingly wide variety of aesthetically equivalent cultural genres. Contrasting versions of this argument are isolated. Data concerning the frequency of use of different commer- cial sources of meals and the social characteristics of customers using different types of restaurant in England are examined. An attempt is made to infer the social and symbolic significance of variety of experience and, in particular, of familiarity with diverse ethnic cuisines. The findings are interpreted in terms of the complex role of consumption in personal assurance, communicative competence and social dis- tinction. It is maintained that the pursuit of variety of consumer experience is a feature of particular social groups and that some specific component practices express social distinction.

Consumption and the Problem of Variety: Cultural Omnivorousness, Social Distinction and Dining Out:

Abstract: In the light of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper begins by reviewing an argument that Western populations no longer recognise any fixed cultural hierarchy and that, instead, individuals seek knowledge of an increasingly wide variety of aesthetically equivalent cultural genres. Contrasting versions of this argument are isolated. Data concerning the frequency of use of different commercial sources of meals and the social characteristics of customers using different types of restaurant in England are examined. An attempt is made to infer the social and symbolic significance of variety of experience and, in particular, of familiarity with diverse ethnic cuisines. The findings are interpreted in terms of the complex role of consumption in personal assurance, communicative competence and social distinction. It is maintained that the pursuit of variety of consumer experience is a feature of particular social groups and that some specific component practices express social distinction.

Convenience food: space and timing

Abstract: This paper argues that the emergence of convenience food reflects the re‐ordering of the time‐space relations of everyday life in contemporary society. It is suggested that the notion of convenience food is highly contested. Britons are ambivalent about serving and eating convenience food. However, many people are constrained to eat what they call convenience foods as a provisional response to intransigent problems of scheduling everyday life. A distinction is drawn between modern and hypermodern forms of convenience, the first directed towards labour‐saving or time compression, the second to time‐shifting. It is maintained that convenience food is as much a hypermodern response to de‐routinisation as it is a modern search for the reduction of toil. Convenience food is required because people are too often in the wrong place; the impulse to time‐shifting arises from the compulsion to plan ever more complex time‐space paths in everyday life. The problem of timing supersedes the problem of shortage of time. Some of the more general social implications of such a claim are explored.