Showing papers in "Cultural Sociology in 2007"
TL;DR: The idea of reflexivity has much to offer to the analysis of taste -but reflexivity in its ancient sense, a form neither active nor passive, pointing to an originary state where things, persons, and events have just arrived, with no action, subject or objects yet decided as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The idea of reflexivity has much to offer to the analysis of taste - but reflexivity in its ancient sense, a form neither active nor passive, pointing to an originary state where things, persons, and events have just arrived, with no action, subject or objects yet decided. Objects of taste are not present, inert, available and at our service.They give themselves up, they shy away, they impose themselves. ‘Amateurs’ do not believe things have taste. On the contrary, they make themselves detect them, through a continuous elaboration of procedures that put taste to the test. Understood as reflexive work performed on one’s own attachments, the amateur’s taste is no longer considered (as with so-called ‘critical’ sociology) an arbitrary election which has to be explained by hidden social causes. Rather, it is a collective technique, whose analysis helps us to understand the ways we make ourselves sensitized, to things, to ourselves, to situations and to moments, while simultaneously controlling how those feelings might be shared and discussed with others.
396 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the coherence of the omnivore thesis and found that there is a sector of the population of western countries who do and like a greater variety of forms of culture than previously, and that broad engagement reflects emerging values of tolerance and undermines snobbery.
Abstract: The concept of omnivorousness has become influential in the sociologies of culture and consumption, cited variously as evidence of altered hierarchies in cultural participation and as indicative of broader socio-cultural changes. The ‘omnivore thesis’ contends that there is a sector of the population of western countries who do and like a greater variety of forms of culture than previously, and that this broad engagement reflects emerging values of tolerance and undermines snobbery. This article draws on the findings of a study of cultural participation in the UK to explore the coherence of the omnivore thesis. It uses a survey to identify and isolate omnivores, and then proceeds to explore the meanings of omnivorousness through the analysis of in-depth, qualitative interviews with them. It concludes that, while there is evidence of wide cultural participation within the UK, the figure of the omnivore is less singularly distinctive than some studies have suggested.
286 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the increasing concern for, and elaboration of, human rights points to a world-cultural environment where the individual is increasingly regarded as sacred and inviolable, and explore how human rights have developed historically as a ''cult of the individual''.
Abstract: Despite ongoing attention to the subject, cultural accounts of the globalization of human rights are surprisingly scarce. Most accounts describe this phenomenon either as a function of evolutionary progress or the rational/strategic action of states and social movement organizations. As a result, they have difficulty explaining both the moral impulse to act on behalf of human rights and the tremendous expansion of the ideology itself. Borrowing insights from global cultural analysis, I argue that the increasing concern for, and elaboration of, human rights points to a world-cultural environment where the individual is increasingly regarded as sacred and inviolable. To demonstrate this, I explore how human rights have developed historically as a `cult of the individual' and present new data on their recent worldwide expansion.
146 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider four major lines of re-assessment being carried out by sociologists studying the arts: first, a reconsideration of the relationship between sociological and other disciplinary approaches to art; secondly, the possibility of an art-sociology as against a sociology of art; thirdly, the application of insights from the sociology-of-art to non-art ''stuff ''; and, fourthly the sociology of the artwork conceived as a contingent social fact.
Abstract: This article maps recent developments in social science writing about the arts and argues for seeing this work in terms of the label the `new sociology of art'. It considers four major lines of re-assessment being carried out by sociologists studying the arts: firstly, a reconsideration of the relationship between sociological and other disciplinary approaches to art; secondly, the possibility of an art-sociology as against a sociology of art; thirdly, the application of insights from the sociology of art to non-art `stuff '; and, fourthly, the sociology of the artwork conceived as a contingent social fact. The argument is made that these developments represent an advance on the tendency to limit sociological investigations of the arts to contextual or external factors. The `new sociology of art' is praised for framing questions about the aesthetic properties of art and artworks in a way that is compatible with social constructionsim.
112 citations
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TL;DR: This paper argued that it is preferable to examine the processes through which culture is separated off from the social via the production of distinctive cultural assemblages, and the kinds of work that culture does in being brought to act on the "working surfaces on the social" that are organized in the relations between social and cultural knowledges.
Abstract: The formulations of cultural sociology have a tendency to merge culture and the social so closely that they become indistinguishable from one another. Drawing on Foucauldian governmentality theory and actor network theory, this article argues that it is preferable to examine the processes through which culture is separated off from the social via the production of distinctive cultural assemblages.The kinds of issues that need to be taken into consideration to account for the work that goes into making culture as a publicly differentiated realm are identified. Attention then focuses on the kinds of work that culture does in being brought to act on the ‘working surfaces on the social’ that are organized in the relations between social and cultural knowledges. The argument is exemplified by considering how the assemblages of Aboriginal culture produced by Baldwin Spencer enabled the production of a new surface of social management through which the relations between white and Aboriginal Australia were organi...
83 citations
TL;DR: For instance, if inequality is imposed by material and coercive force, then it can be remedied only by accumulating power and counter-force, and by exercising them in an instrumental and potentially coercive way.
Abstract: When it comes to issues of equality and redistribution, sociologists are particularly prone to think in anti-cultural terms. External, objective, and material forces are conceived as determining unequal distributions without reference to the wills of actors - via hegemony, domination, subordination. But if inequality is imposed by material and coercive force, then it can be remedied only by accumulating power and counter-force, and by exercising them in an instrumental and potentially coercive way.What is missing from this account is meaning, the recognition of its relative autonomy. The imposition of inequality, and struggles over justice, inclusion, and distribution, are mediated by cultural structures. Inequalities are nested inside the discourse of civil society, and so are demands for equality. Vis-a-vis the binary codes of civil society, protest movements pollute hegemonic forces and purify subordinate groups in its name.
61 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the changing conceptualizations of adversity in Britain through comparing the cultural representations of the floods of the 1950s with those of the year 2000, and argued that both the representations of how a community copes with a disaster and people's lived experiences of disasters were influenced by this shift.
Abstract: Through comparing the cultural representations of the floods of the 1950s with those of the year 2000, this article explores the changing conceptualizations of adversity in Britain.The focus of this study is the shift from a narrative of resilience in the 1950s to a narrative of vulnerability in the early 21st century.This shift is paralleled by a reorientation of cultural scripts from an emphasis on community solidarity to individual distress. This article contends that both the representations of how a community copes with a disaster, and people’s lived experiences of disasters, were influenced by this shift.Through exploring the evolution of the cultural narrative of adversity, its changing meaning is discussed.
54 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at three aspects of the rise of ethno-national pop-rock music to national legitimacy: the agency of musicians, analyzed as structurally stemming from the intersection of the field of poprock and national culture; a four-phase, half-century long process, called here the ''historical musical event' of Pop-rock; and the consequence of pop rock legitimacy for performance of national uniqueness.
Abstract: Pop-rock music is portrayed as a major embodiment of the transformation of national cultural uniqueness from purist essentialism into aesthetic cosmopolitanism. Examining the local production of ethno-national pop-rock, and its public reception and legitimation through half a century, the article demonstrates how forces within the national context greatly contribute to cultural globalization. The article looks at three aspects of the rise of ethno-national pop-rock music to national legitimacy: the agency of musicians, analyzed as structurally stemming from the intersection of the field of pop-rock and the field of national culture; a four-phase, half-century long process, called here the `historical musical event' of pop-rock; and the consequence of pop-rock legitimacy for performance of national uniqueness. The general arguments and theoretical points are illustrated by detailed reference to the cases of pop-rock music in Argentina and Israel.
53 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that there is still much to be gained from sociologically informed empirical enquiry into the work of journalists, and they use examples of journalists' mistakes and the ways journalists regulate and control each others' work to illustrate the case.
Abstract: This article sets out a case for a revived sociology of media work. It suggests that a certain sociological approach, neglected for some time, offers the promise of (a) providing a more rounded sociological account of journalistic practice that (b) will help us better understand what journalists do and how and why they do it, (c) will ultimately help us better understand the process of news production and message creation, and (d) may have wider applicability for the study of occupations in the realm of cultural production.The article argues that there is still much to be gained from sociologically informed empirical enquiry into the work of journalists. The examples of journalists’ mistakes and the ways journalists regulate and control each others’ work are used to illustrate the case. This involves an analytical framework built on the concept of journalism as an occupational accomplishment.
50 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a reconciled model of an agency-structurefeedback loop is presented to analyze the societal significance of museums and museum visits, showing that visits to arts institutions cannot be explained by structural conditions or by individual choice alone, but by a combination of both.
Abstract: The objective of this article is to explain visits to arts institutions by merging two theoretical perspectives that are generally regarded as antithetical, the model of the human being as homo sociologicus, and the model of the human being as homo oeconomicus. This article demonstrates that visits to arts institutions cannot be explained either by structural conditions or by individual choice alone, but by a combination of both. I demonstrate this by combining Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Giddens’ structuration theory to produce a reconciled model of an agency-structure-feedback loop, applying this model to analyse the societal significance of museums and museum visits. The reciprocal relationship of structure and agency connects Giddens’ agency-driven museum visitor with Bourdieu’s structure-driven museum visitor.This case of museum analysis shows that an agency-structure polarity does not reflect reality. Neither do museums (structure) fully determine museum visitors (agency) nor do museum visitor...
41 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine Inglehart's argument that there is a predictable shift from materialist to post-materialist values, using the British case as their focus.
Abstract: This paper critically examines Inglehart's argument that there is a predictable shift from materialist to post-materialist values, using the British case as our focus. Using the 1981, 1990 and 1999 data for the British part of World Values Surveys, we criticize the distinction between materialist and post-materialist values. Using multiple correspondence analysis, we visualize how different attitudes are related to each other by portraying them in a multiple-dimensional space. We show that the organization of cultural values is complex, and is not easily summarized by the materialist/post-materialist dichotomy.We prefer to recognize the more politically loaded nature of attitudes by distinguishing between libertarian and authoritarian values, and between conformist and rebellious citizens. We show that there is little evidence of major change between 1981 and 1999, and indeed Britons, and especially young people, are moving slightly away from post-materialism, becoming increasingly rebellious and conscien...
TL;DR: In this paper, a more interpretive approach to the explanation of Salem is proposed: an analysis of the intersection of the gendered symbolization of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts and the larger tensions within Puritan culture at the close of the 17th century.
Abstract: Sociological explanations of the Salem witch trials, and of witch-hunts in the West more generally, have focused on economic transition, political instability, and the functional aspects of witchcraft belief. A more interpretive approach to the explanation of Salem is proposed: an analysis of the intersection of the gendered symbolization of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts and the larger tensions within Puritan culture at the close of the 17th century. A broad theoretical implication of this interpretive shift is also proposed: that a cultural-sociological approach to witch-hunting as symbolic action can bring together feminist theorizations of witch-hunting as an exercise in patriarchal power with the social history of the broad, structural causes of witchhunting in pre-modern Europe and New England.
TL;DR: This paper argued that cultural sociology should take heed of conceptual and policy ambiguities that developed within British and Australian cultural studies, and also proposed that cultural sociological might build on the underdeveloped common ground between Frankfurt critical theory and cultural studies.
Abstract: This article argues that cultural sociology should take heed of conceptual and policy ambiguities that developed within British and Australian cultural studies. However, it also proposes that cultural sociology might build on the underdeveloped common ground between Frankfurt critical theory and cultural studies. Habermas’s notion of the ‘literary public sphere’ is taken as a useful point of contact between these fields. This literary public sphere thesis is reconstructed in some detail and its fate in recent debates is explored. Habermas’s concept of the contradictory institutionalization of political public spheres is applied to the literary public sphere thesis.The article proposes that the examination of differing modes of contradictory institutionalization of literary and political public spheres might aid comparison not only of nation-states’ differing policy practices but also of intellectual traditions such as cultural studies as well.Throughout, the article advocates the relevance of a cultural p...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at the value of genealogical analysis for doing historical research in cultural sociology, using Nietzsche's definition of genealogy, and demonstrate its value for analyzing forms of culture that have become tacit or unarticulated over time.
Abstract: This article looks at the value of genealogical analysis for doing historical research in cultural sociology, using Nietzsche’s definition of genealogyThe point is to resuscitate a method that has often been rejected by sociologists, and demonstrate its value for analyzing forms of culture that have become tacit or unarticulated over time To make the case for the method, the article follows a historical example: the use of indigenous hydraulics with Roman provenance on the Canal du Midi in 17th-century France Women labourers brought hydraulics techniques derived from Roman principles to the canal, but their work was not considered classical Ironically, the Canal du Midi was promoted in propaganda campaigns, defining France as the New Rome, but the peasant women who actually carried Roman culture in their eyes and hands were not socially elevated enough to be New Romans, so they were written out of this story
TL;DR: In this article, the authors apply Bourdieu's approach to consecration, legitimacy and autonomization in the fields of art to the struggle to legitimize film as art and compare the conditions of possibility for failure or success in institutionally establishing film-as-art in the two cases, and conclude with an evaluation of the utility of the model when applied to film art in diverse social, cultural and political circumstances.
Abstract: In this paper we seek to apply Bourdieu’s approach to consecration, legitimacy and autonomization in the fields of art to the struggle to legitimize film as art.We examine the efficacy of Bourdieu’s theory in relation to the early ‘film-as-art’ campaign as it received institutional expression in the profoundly different economic, social and cultural circumstances of Brazil and Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. After tracing the broad history of film art movements in each case,we employ Bourdieu’s concepts of heteronomy/autonomy and degree of consecration as the principal axes in mapping the fields of film art in Britain and Brazil.We then compare the conditions of possibility for failure or success in institutionally establishing film as art in the two cases, and conclude with an evaluation of the utility of Bourdieu’s model when applied to film art in such diverse social, cultural and political circumstances.
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of Colombia's cut-flower industry is used to explore the mutual entwinement of culture and economy, and examine responses by cut-flour employers and their representatives to ethical trade discourses demanding economic justice for Colombia's largely female cutflower workers.
Abstract: Based on a case study of Colombia’s cut-flower industry, this article draws strategically on Nancy Fraser’s model of (in)justice to explore the mutual entwinement of culture and economy. It examines responses by cut-flower employers and their representatives to ethical trade discourses demanding economic justice for Colombia’s largely female cut-flower workers. It argues that employers’ misrecognition of both ethical trade campaigners and cut-flower workers may serve to deny and redefine claims of maldistribution.Through a ‘home-grown’ code of conduct, employers also seek to appropriate ethical trade in their own interests. Finally, a gender coding of worker misrecognition ostensibly displaces workers’ problems from the economic realm to the cultural, offering the ‘modernity’ of full capitalist relations as the solution. In further examining the ‘responses to the responses’ by workers and their advocates, the contestation of ethical trade is highlighted and its prospects assessed.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine competing meanings assigned to collections / collected objects when spouses divorce, and suggest that collected objects are also constitutive of class and gender relations, as issues of ownership become contested upon divorce, between spouses.
Abstract: This article examines competing meanings assigned to collections / collected objects when spouses divorce. An approach to material culture that privileges the mundane and sensual qualities of artefacts as well as their symbolic meanings enables the unpicking of the subtle connections with cultural lives and values that are objectified through such forms. The article illustrates both the way meanings assigned to collected objects can be multiple and shifting, and the ways in which they are constitutive of relationships: between collecting practices, collections, and collector; between `things' and `home'; and, as issues of ownership become contested upon divorce, between spouses. It suggests that, in this case at least, collected objects are also constitutive of class and gender relations. Barnard talked of a `his marriage' and a `her marriage'. This is a `herstor y' of the making, and keeping, of three collections, and of their significance in the parting of spouses and the reconstitution of home(s) post-...
TL;DR: In the Basque country cooking and eating together in gastronomic societies (in Basque: txokos, in Spanish: sociedades gastronomicalas) are highly popular activities.
Abstract: In the Basque Country cooking and eating together in gastronomic societies (in Basque: txokos, in Spanish: sociedades gastronomicas) are highly popular activities. They represent a form of social b...
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Bryant as discussed by the authors argued that any future constitutional mechanics in separating Scotland from the British state may well be more straightforward than disentangling commonsense understandings of Britain/England in England: it may well prove easier to take Scotland out of Britain than to take Britain out of England.
Abstract: effectively defines Britain – rather than the UK – as the state. After insisting on a geographical Britain in order to exclude Ireland, Bryant then proceeds to treat Britain as a political entity. Either this is a deliberate manoeuvre to wriggle out of the thorny question of Northern Ireland’s position within ‘the British State’, or it is a revealing forgetfulness. Bryant rather perceptively notes that any future constitutional mechanics in separating Scotland from the British state may well be more straightforward than disentangling commonsense understandings of Britain/England in England: ‘It may well prove easier to take Scotland out of Britain than to take Britain out of England’ (p. 11). Yet he immediately qualifies this by noting that ‘Dissociation from Britain is also exceedingly problematic for Ulster unionists, even if many identify with a Britain that no longer exists’ (p. 11). The rest of ‘the British’ have found it remarkably easy to dissociate ‘Ulster’ (and its unionists) from ‘Britain’, as shown by Bryant’s own forgetfulness of the ‘United Kingdom’ and his easy conflation of ‘state’ and ‘Britain’. Reflecting upon that reforging of Britishness – an ongoing process that, despite occurring before our eyes, has gone largely unnoticed outside Northern Ireland – would have added extra edge to Bryant’s conclusions.
TL;DR: The Civil Sphere argues in the great tradition of the classic works of sociology, it has all the hallmarks of being a classic itself as mentioned in this paper, and it has a strong theoretical and conceptual program.
Abstract: introduced by Alexander. To have thought about, re-defined and made the very boundaries of cultural sociology more elastic, while at the same time providing a strong theoretical and conceptual programme, and to have done so almost singlehandedly, is no mean achievement. Not only does The Civil Sphere argue in the great tradition of the classic works of sociology, it has all the hallmarks of being a classic itself.