Showing papers in "Cultural Sociology in 2017"
TL;DR: The authors explored variation in the conspiracy milieu through people's own self-understanding and found that people actively resist their stigmatization as "conspiracy theorists" by distinguishing themselves from the mainstream as critical freethinkers.
Abstract: Despite their popularity and normalization, the public image of conspiracy theory remains morally tainted. Academics contribute by conceiving of conspiracy theorists as a coherent collective: internal variety is sacrificed for a clear external demarcation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands, we explore variation in the conspiracy milieu through people’s own self-understanding. More particularly, we study how these people identify with and distinguish themselves from others. The analysis shows that they actively resist their stigmatization as ‘conspiracy theorists’ by distinguishing themselves from the mainstream as ‘critical freethinkers’. The trope ‘I am not a conspiracy theorist’ is used to reclaim rationality by labelling others within the conspiracy milieu the ‘real’ conspiracy theorists. Secondly, their ideas of self and other make three groups apparent: ‘activists’, ‘retreaters’ and ‘mediators’. Conspiracy culture, we conclude, is not one monolithic whole, but rather a network of d...
71 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how combinations of strategic interpretation and spatial distance influence incumbent business owners' decisions to pursue temporal adaptation as a response to a relocation of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
Abstract: Even when shocks in a firm's environment are predictable, their consequences are not. Using the relocation of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium as a rich case of such a disruption, we investigate how combinations of strategic interpretation and spatial distance influence incumbent business owners' decisions to pursue temporal adaptation as a response. Temporal adaptation (TA) comprises timing rather than content changes by the firm seeking to adjust to the reconfigured environment. Survey data from 168 business owners show that strategic interpretation directly influences TA decisions. However, the effect of strategic interpretation on the TA decision is moderated by the spatial (geographic) distance of the incumbent firm from the locus of the disruption. Furthermore, results suggest that through strategic interpretation, spatial distance also indirectly affects the business owners' decisions to make temporal changes. Data collected 1.5 and 4 years later suggest that TA responses are related to performance and may be indicative of a particular type of TA, organizational entrainment (OE), which concerns the synchronization of organizational activity cycles with cycles in the environment
51 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that typecasting acts as the key mechanism through which the "somatic norm" is established in British acting and find that successful resistance is accomplished by carefully choosing work that subverts the somatic norm, but the ability to exercise such choice is highly contingent on resources associated with an actor's class origin.
Abstract: This article draws on 38 in-depth interviews with British actors to explore the operation of typecasting. First, we argue that typecasting acts as the key mechanism through which the ‘somatic norm’ is established in British acting. It delivers an oversupply of leading roles for white, male, middle-class actors while ensuring that those who deviate somatically are restricted to largely socially caricatured roles. Second, we focus on the career trajectories of ‘othered’ actors. While they frequently experience acting roles as offensive and discriminatory, we demonstrate how most nonetheless reluctantly accept the terms of their ‘type’ in order to survive and succeed. Third, we focus on the minority who have attempted to challenge their type. Here we find that successful resistance is accomplished by carefully choosing work that subverts the somatic norm. However, the ability to exercise such choice is highly contingent on resources associated with an actor’s class origin.
39 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that market logics governing broadcasting discipline cultural workers and contribute to the production of reductive and stigmatising representations of social class and poverty, and offer new insights into relationships between television production, representation and consumption.
Abstract: Since 2013 there has been an explosion of a new genre of factual programming on British television that centres on the everyday lives of people claiming benefits. The emergence of Factual Welfare Television (FWT) has coincided with intensifying public and political debates about poverty and the British welfare state, and has proved a deeply controversial and contested genre. While programme-makers have argued that FWT fulfils a public service mandate to inform audiences, critics have accused producers of making inaccurate, provocative and unethical television. Sociological enquiries into FWT have focused on the representations within these programmes and audience reception, arguing that these contribute to hardening anti-welfare sentiment. This article presents a complementary and urgent line of enquiry into FWT, locating it squarely within the conditions of its production by including questions of cultural labour, diversity in the workforce, and increasing competition and deregulation within broadcasting. We argue that market logics governing broadcasting discipline cultural workers and contribute to the production of reductive and stigmatising representations of social class and poverty. In doing so, we offer new insights into relationships between television production, representation and – consequently – consumption.
36 citations
TL;DR: The authors dialogues Polanyi and Bourdieu to propose a new research agenda within the sociology of cultural production, extending recent literature on hipsters, this iconic figure is shifted from...
Abstract: This article dialogues Polanyi and Bourdieu to propose a new research agenda within the sociology of cultural production. Extending recent literature on hipsters, this iconic figure is shifted from...
35 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the changing pattern of cultural privilege in contemporary France using French data on cultural practices, including variables on high-brow culture, mass culture and cosmopo... and found that the privilege of highbrow culture and mass culture is correlated.
Abstract: This article explores the changing pattern of cultural privilege in contemporary France. Using French data on cultural practices, including variables on ‘highbrow’ culture, mass culture and cosmopo...
31 citations
TL;DR: Omnivorous cultural theory highlights the persistence of inequalities within gourmet food culture despite its increasing democratization, arguing that foods remain symbols of distinction through th... as discussed by the authors,.
Abstract: Omnivorous cultural theory highlights the persistence of inequalities within gourmet food culture despite its increasing democratization, arguing that foods remain symbols of distinction through th...
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that attempts to address racial inequalities in production and consumption in this way, reinforce rather than dismantle them, and use a case study on British Asian theatre to demonstrate the need to attract new audiences to the arts.
Abstract: This article has two aims. Firstly, it challenges the assumption in both policy and media studies of race that increasing the number of minorities in the media will automatically lead to more diverse content. Secondly, it highlights how cultural distribution is a critical, yet under-researched, moment for racialised minorities working in the arts. Using a case study on ‘British Asian theatre’, the article problematises a particular cultural policy approach that emphasises the need to attract ‘new audiences’. While the emphasis on bringing marginalised audiences to the arts is welcome, this article argues that attempts to address racial inequalities in production and consumption in this way, reinforce rather than dismantle them.
24 citations
TL;DR: Crossley et al. as mentioned in this paper examined the individuals who were the cultural workforce that comprised the Britpop music scene of the 1990s and found that Britpop's "whole network" is heterophilic but its "sub-networks" are more likely to be social class homophilic.
Abstract: Social network analysis is increasingly recognised as a useful way to explore music scenes In this article we examine the individuals who were the cultural workforce that comprised the 'Britpop' music scene of the 1990s The focus of our analysis is homophily and heterophily to determine whether the clusters of friendships and working relationships of those who were ‘best connected’ in the scene were patterned by original social class position We find that Britpop's 'whole network' is heterophilic but its 'sub-networks' are more likely to be social class homophilic The sub-networks that remain heterophilic are likely to be united by other common experiences that brought individuals in the network to the same social spaces We suggest that our findings on Britpop might be generalised to the composition of other music scenes, cultural workforces and aggregations of young people Our study differs from research on, first, British ‘indie music’ and social class which focusses upon the construction, representation and performance of social location rather than the relationships it might shape (such as Wiseman-Trowse, 2008) and second, the pioneering social network analyses of music scenes (such as Crossley 2008; 2009; 2015; Crossley et al 2014) which currently lacks the explicit emphasis on social class
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on two empirical studies on contemporary engagements with classical music in the United Kingdom to shed light on the ways in which class inequalities are reproduced in practices of practice.
Abstract: This article draws on two empirical studies on contemporary engagements with classical music in the United Kingdom to shed light on the ways in which class inequalities are reproduced in practices ...
21 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the challenges of media convergence in the newsroom of Valor Economico, the main economic newspaper in Brazil, and explored how the introduction in 2013 of a real-time news service oriented to the financial market, changed newsmaking practices at the newspaper.
Abstract: Media convergence and growing financial pressure on the journalistic field have triggered significant changes in newsmaking cultures across the world. This article examines the challenges of media convergence in the newsroom of Valor Economico, the main economic newspaper in Brazil. In particular, it explores how the introduction in 2013 of Valor Pro, a real time news service oriented to the financial market, changed newsmaking practices at Valor Economico. The introduction of Valor Pro meant that journalists from the whole newsroom had to report news simultaneously for three platforms: the real time service, the online website and the printed paper. This shift not only intensified journalists’ workloads and altered the manufacture of news, but also increased financial pressure on the paper’s agenda. I argue that this shift – from producing news for the public towards producing news for the market – cannot be explained solely with reference to traditional political economic factors such as ideological decisions at editorial level and the structural properties of the Brazilian media sphere. Instead, drawing on resources from cultural sociology and from science and technology studies, I provide a richer explanation that acknowledges the impact of technological innovation, the shifting nature of news values, and the agency of journalists themselves. This article elaborates on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Valor Economico’s newsroom in Sao Paulo between 2013 and 2015 and contributes to the literature on cultural sociology, media studies and science and technology studies.
TL;DR: The role of artists in the valuation of their activities has been explored in this article, where the authors assume that artists' value is closely linked to the prices of art objects and have minimized the pl...
Abstract: What role do artists play in the valuation of their activities? Theoretical perspectives on art have assumed that such value is closely linked to the prices of art objects and have minimized the pl...
TL;DR: Based on a French survey designed to understand how young people appropriate internationally disseminated cultural products, the authors explores the social stratification of everyday aesthetico-categories of everyday items.
Abstract: Based on a French survey designed to understand how young people appropriate internationally disseminated cultural products, this article explores the social stratification of everyday aesthetico-c...
TL;DR: Ostrower as mentioned in this paper argues that cultural capital grows out of the social organization of a social network and is grounded in distinct aesthetic knowledge and tastes among elites, while Pierre Bourdieu argues that culture capital grows from the social network.
Abstract: While Pierre Bourdieu argues that cultural capital is grounded in distinct aesthetic knowledge and tastes among elites, Francie Ostrower emphasizes that cultural capital grows out of the social org...
TL;DR: In this article, a large survey into cultural practices in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (Belgium) was conducted with the aim of understanding the complexity of the structural relations that organize cultural tastes and practices into cultural profiles.
Abstract: The debate over the rise of eclecticism, more particularly Peterson’s ‘omnivore thesis’, has received much attention over recent years. For Lahire, eclecticism reflects less an increasing individual openness to a variety of cultural styles than intra-individual dissonances. Based on a large survey into cultural practices in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (Belgium – N = 2021), this article compares these two notions with the aim of understanding the complexity of the structural relations that organise cultural tastes and practices into ‘cultural profiles’. I argue that omnivorousness cannot be reduced to dissonance but instead both notions characterise different configurations of cultural choices. More importantly, I show that identifying omnivorous and dissonant patterns matters less than understanding how these patterns emerge from tensions between existing and emerging cultural hierarchies at the individual and social levels.
TL;DR: In this paper, the consumption of and participation in non-national cultural activities was analyzed as a measure of Europeans' affinity with cosmopolitan culture and aesthetes, and these patterns serve as the measure of Europe's affinity to cosmopolitan cultures.
Abstract: This article analyses Europeans’ consumption of and participation in non-national cultural activities. These patterns serve as a measure of Europeans’ affinity with cosmopolitan culture and aesthet...
TL;DR: This paper argued that the cultural Marxism of figures like Thompson can-not simply be resurrected it does continue to offer a number of critical insights lacking from other traditions within cultural sociology and argued that cultural sociology needs to move beyond more simplistic understandings of cultural Marxism and more carefully explore what it has to offer.
Abstract: There is currently a need for cultural sociology to readdress the work of humanistic and cultural Marxism. While more recently much of this work has been dismissed the appearance of more radical social movements and the on-going crisis of neoliberalism suggests that it still has much to tell us. In this respect, this article seeks to readdress the writing of historian E.P.Thompson arguing that his work on the class based and other social movements, poetics, critique of positivism and economic reason, utopia and work on the idea of the commons all has much to offer more contemporary scholarship. While the article recognises that the cultural Marxism of figures like Thompson can-not simply be resurrected it does continue to offer a number of critical insights lacking from other traditions within cultural sociology. By readdressing the internal complexity of Thompson’s writing the argumentative strategy of this article suggests that cultural sociology needs to move beyond more simplistic understandings of cultural Marxism and more carefully explore what it has to offer.
TL;DR: This article argued that the structural logic of capital accumulation inevitably creates a black market of counterfeit commerce, which is a parasitic form of illegal consumerism which mirrors conventional capitalist organization reproducing familiar dynamics of valued status differentiation.
Abstract: Study of the consumption of counterfeit products casts consumers as reflexive agents who knowingly break the law (through the consumption of illegal commodities). Because this analysis is pitched at the level of meaning rather than structural constraints, it produces a misleading view of reflexive counterfeit consumption as being motivated by resistance or the wish to escape from normative coercion. This paper contrasts with approaches that prefigure meaning in explaining counterfeit commerce by treating the trade as an unavoidable structural feature of capitalism. That is, the structural logic of capital accumulation inevitably creates a black market of counterfeit commerce. It is a parasitic form of illegal consumerism which mirrors conventional capitalist organization reproducing familiar dynamics of valued status differentiation.
TL;DR: In numerous explorations of the social basis of participatory practices, a division between cultural engagement and cultural capital has been identified as discussed by the authors. But this division has not yet been explored in the literature.
Abstract: Research on cultural capital has been very attentive to cultural participation. In numerous explorations of the social basis of participatory practices, a division between cultural engagement and d...
TL;DR: The notion of cultural eclecticism as formulated initially by Richard Peterson includes the two ideas that cultural ecology is axiological (a mix of elite and non-elite genres) and represents a "standard for good tas....
Abstract: Eclecticism as formulated initially by Richard Peterson includes the two ideas that cultural eclecticism is axiological (a mix of elite and non-elite genres) and represents a ‘standard for good tas...
TL;DR: According to as mentioned in this paper, gatekeepers tend to prefer "weird" music in terms of unconventionality and even obscurity rather than focusing on cultural similarity through genre conventions, and a few licensed venue administrators took popularity within the underground as an index of value.
Abstract: How do music venues reconcile competing desires for popularity and uniqueness in their bookings? According to 25 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with the staff of licensed and unlicensed music venues, gatekeepers tended to prefer ‘weird’ music in terms of unconventionality and even obscurity rather than focusing on cultural similarity through genre conventions. Respondents described at least three ways to reconcile this internal tension of cultural-economic value. A few licensed venue administrators took popularity within the ‘underground’ as an index of value. Others constructed a narrative of building bands from obscurity to success in terms of both economic and cultural value. However, most respondents described strategies of differentiation between cultural and economic value in their economic relationships. This final way of understanding the cultural economy extends Zelizer’s theory of relational economics to find that economic actors do not only differentiate transactions according to social t...
TL;DR: The authors examined the consistency of Pierre Bourdieu's homology thesis by assessing, at a class-fraction level, the statistical significance of the differences in taste and lifestyle reported in Distinction.
Abstract: This study examines the consistency of Pierre Bourdieu’s homology thesis by assessing, at a class-fraction level, the statistical significance of the differences in taste and lifestyle reported in Distinction. According to Bourdieu, taste and lifestyle vary not only from one social class to another, but also within social classes themselves, depending on the type of capital (notably, cultural or economic) that prevails among class fractions. In this article, we estimate the cultural distance separating eight fractions of the middle and upper classes by performing bilateral between-proportion comparison tests. Two levels of analysis are considered: the intra-class and the inter-class fraction levels. The first level only involves within-class comparisons. It aims to test the empirical basis of the concept of capital composition. The second level only involves comparisons between middle-class and upper-class fractions. It aims to test Bourdieu’s representation of social space. Results indicate that 1) the c...
TL;DR: In this article, the development of the sociology of culture in the former USSR and Russia from pre-Soviet to post-Soviet times is analyzed. And the analysis highlights the effects of two groups of factors.
Abstract: This article maps the development of the sociology of culture in the Soviet Union and Russia from pre-Soviet to post-Soviet times. The analysis highlights the effects of two groups of factors – one...
TL;DR: De Boise as mentioned in this paper argues that affective responses to music are learned through context and dominant discourses, and that the emotional affect of music does indeed depend on context when that very same music played with the same intensity could be the source of great happiness to someone who appreciates the genre.
Abstract: ‘distasteful’ genres when they are rendered acceptable through the masculine rituals of a live concert. Although specific case studies of affective intensities may be missing, de Boise does engage with the affective qualities of music in his final chapter. By avoiding the ‘liberal relativism’ (p. 156) of affective embodiment, whereby affect is unpredictable and incalculable, de Boise argues that affective responses to music are learned through context and dominant discourses. That the US military used extreme music as a form of torture on male prisoners in Fallujah suggests that the emotional affect of music does indeed depend on context when that very same music played with the same intensity could be the source of great happiness to someone who appreciates the genre (Goodman, 2010: 21). Music as torture is not on the agenda of de Boise. Instead, he sees the positive influence that an appreciation for music’s emotional substance can have on the construction and performance of gendered identities once emotions are accepted as natural and necessary to femininities and masculinities alike.
TL;DR: Felski as discussed by the authors proposes a post-critical reading of critique, which is a return to hermeneutics, situating the interpreter among texts, as constituted by them, and by critical texts among texts.
Abstract: all these versions of critique? Perhaps, such a tension is to be expected; ‘critique inhabits us, and we become habituated to critique’ (p. 21). Neither Felski nor any other modern reader can simply discuss critique without deploying critique, so that it only appears as a ‘hermeneutic’ by deploying a discursive manoeuvre which displaces or contests critique. There are complex theoretical questions opened for debate here: what kind of a relationship can we have to the discourses which constitute us as thinkers? Typically, the discourse called into question is ‘reason’, but now, also ‘critique’. If we are critics, and constituted as such, how else may we think, what else is open to us? Perhaps one fruitful avenue here is to demonstrate that critique is multiple, with a complex history which can be illuminated – not unmasked! – by genealogical investigation. Rather than dwelling overly on this paradox or attempting to perfect critique, Felski proposes ‘post-critical’ reading, not implying that critique has been left behind, but that it has already been practiced, and is just one among myriad different hermeneutics. To an extent, this is a return to hermeneutics, situating the interpreter among texts, as constituted by them, and by critical texts among texts. Furthermore, drawing on Latour’s actor–network theory, Felski suggests that authors, readers and critics are not the only actors involved in interpretation, there are non-humans, texts, journals, circulation systems, but moreover there are hermeneutics, theories and other techniques, including critique. Within this complex network, critique has its limitations, and there are numerous post-critical possibilities.
TL;DR: Social Semiotics for a Complex World as mentioned in this paper is an excellent overview of social semiotics in the digital globalized revolution of contemporary life, focusing on the relationship between social and linguistic activity.
Abstract: systems. His concluding chapter is then a reflexive summary of social semiotics in the digital globalized revolution of contemporary life. Social semiotics as a field is always a going to be a tough sell, nestled within an already obscure discipline suffering from an image problem. And yet, Hodge goes a long way to overcome this, positioning social semiotics as a contemporary method for the networked 21st century. Social Semiotics for a Complex World is not only for semioticians interested in semiotic social inquiry. Instead, Hodge opens his monograph by introducing semiotics for the untrained reader. Then, his breadth of contextualized, timely, global examples demonstrate the need for true interdisciplinary and multimodal examination of social and linguistic activity to recognize their reciprocal relationship. Unfortunately, Hodge’s expansive example repertoire, shorn with quick-fire rapidity, comes with the cost of brevity; such multi-scalar analysis by nature requires longer, more detailed examinations. Perhaps this is because Hodge, in arguing that he is transforming linguistic models for better semiotic research, also frequently admits that social semiotics amounts to guess work. However, it should be argued that Hodge is selling his heuristic methods short. Instead, Social Semiotics for a Complex World establishes social semiotics as a highly rigorous, complex yet contemporary method that is recommend to all who are in interested in social meaning-making practices – linguists, cultural and social theorists alike.
TL;DR: In this article, a speculative digression on interior/exteriors and sex re-assignment surgery is presented, in which the author worryingly rests the entire discussion on the idea/ theory of the 'wrong body' narrative as evocative of trans experiences.
Abstract: chapter entitled, ‘A Speculative Digression on Interiors/Exteriors and Sex Reassignment Surgeries’. By labelling and fencing off the discussion in this way the author appears – and I suspect this is unintended – to totalize the surgical experiences/desires of trans women (i.e. as always related to sex reassignment). This totalizing effect is further exacerbated by the way in which the author worryingly rests the entire discussion on the idea/ theory of the ‘wrong body’ narrative as evocative of trans experiences. Whilst this is indeed a popular body/identity narrative within trans communities and theories, it is not the only one. Hurst’s discussion here is not uninformative, just, given the directions it could have taken – and inputs it could have included – disappointingly limited. Such issues could have been avoided had the author worked harder to secure a diverse, representative sample. Surface Imaginations is a welcome and timely addition to the growing body of works considering cosmetic surgery, bodily transformation, and makeovers. It will also be useful to those interested in innovative social research methods. The rich level of detail, the themes and ideas connected, the variety of voices and sources, the distinctive methodology all combine to create a welcome feeling of going beneath the surface of traditional debates around cosmetic surgery. Hurst succeeds in presenting a politically aware account of the tensions attending the transformative promises and impediments, evoked by the voices and surfaces, comprising cosmetic surgery.
TL;DR: Stein's book as mentioned in this paper is a very important book, as it emphasizes the memories of survivors and their children who are fighting to establish their identities against denial politics, sometimes for their personal goals, but most of the time to share an awareness in order to sensitize others to their existence.
Abstract: From Stein’s writings it becomes obvious that this is primarily a personal drama, and in particular, about the absence of her relation with her father, whose whole life after the ‘unsayable’ event was a fight for ‘survivor’s’ status that was denied to him because of the categorization of survivors fighting on their own against the worldwide framework of denial that had followed the first decades after the war, as the Holocaust was encompassed into the wider framework of the war (p. 24). Thus this is partly the story of her father and his claims to Holocaustization, in order to gain German compensation and prove that he is ‘survivor’, despite the fact that he had fled to the Russian side during the war (p. 71). Hence, it is about how he, and other survivors, sought to prove themselves ‘real survivors’, as suffering as ‘one of them’, and looking to be inscribed into a history from which they were excluded due to dynamic of changing criteria for people sharing survivor status. To conclude, this is a very important book, as it emphasizes the memories of survivors and their children who are fighting to establish their identities against denial politics, sometimes for their personal goals, but most of the time to share an awareness in order to sensitize others to their existence. It is important to distinguish this book from the larger trend of relating the Holocaust with the Gaza Conflict and Zionistic project, as the author gives the accent to the very process of shaping the Holocaust Memory Politics by a second generation during an age of Holocaust fatigue. However, one negative of the book is that many references are rather vague and at times it is missing clear specifications, which might lead some to feel the book is not quite as well researched as it might have been.
TL;DR: In this article, the first handover in the journal's history coincides with the publication of its 10th anniversary volume, which is considered a watershed event in the history of the journal.
Abstract: An academic journal is a lot like an artwork. It is the product of collective activity, and the cooperation between participants is organised through joint knowledge of the conventional way of doing things. Editors, as core personnel, are expected to bring more than the technical skills required to assemble issue after issue; this status demands that they also have creative abilities and a vision that will lend the journal a distinctive character. The convention in the publishing world is for this vision to be articulated in the inaugural editorial statement, and depending on whether the editors see themselves as ‘integrated professionals’ or ‘mavericks’ (Becker, 1982), they also indicate the standards of taste to be upheld or introduced. While we will not deviate from this convention, we also see the editorial statement as a deeply symbolic act. It is the ritual equivalent in publishing to the handing over of keys, the changing of the guard, or the swearing in of new office holders. It is the editors’ first opportunity for social performance, where they can ‘display for others the meaning of their social situation’ (Alexander, 2004: 529), and their unwavering commitment to that which is held sacred in their scholarly community. Editorial statements by incoming editors capture a liminal moment in the life of the journal when it is betwixt and between the stewardship of old and new guardians. But in our case, the transition is laden with more significance, not just because it is the first handover in the journal’s history, but also because it aligned with its 10th anniversary volume. Milestones might be arbitrary temporal boundaries, but crossing into the journal’s second decade is experienced as a ‘mental quantum leap’ (Zerubavel, 1996) that prompts a form of biographical occasion to take stock of the journal’s history. To that end, we will begin our editorial statement by considering the position and legacy of the journal before placing ourselves in its unfolding narrative by offering our interpretation of the current state of the field. This sets the scene for the next section, where we reflect on what it means for the journal to serve as an ‘organ of self-consciousness’ (Inglis et al., 2007: 7) in cultural sociology today. In the final section, we identify some of the hot topics and critical conversations we would like to encourage in the journal, as well as our hopes for strengthening and widening the journal’s visibility.
TL;DR: The notion of formal and informal secrecy was introduced by Costas and Grey as mentioned in this paper, who argued that secrecy can be understood as a relation between people. But they did not define formal secrecy as a formal relation between individuals.
Abstract: can only be understood as a relation between people. A useful starting point is the distinction between formal and informal secrecy, but the authors are not trying to open a neat dualism. Formal secrecy can be ‘structural’ without being formalized and professional claims to mastery over certain sorts of knowledge can make concealment into a routine protection of mysteries. Similarly we might regard felicity at the veiling and unveiling of formal and informal workplace secrets as a skill which helps you get along in the workplace, or the concealment of a particular status (as gay, for example) as a necessary navigation of the formalized informal, as in ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. The metaphor of architecture runs through the book, though it would have been nice to see a little more done to move around within it, or beyond it. Walls, corridors, rooms and the opening and closing of doors all suggest structural metaphors for being inside and outside, but the features of buildings do not determine the multiplicity of practices that happen within them. Indeed, the metaphor they have chosen might encourage the reader to think about a rather static ontology of organizing, mistaking the building for the process of organizing. When Costas and Grey write of secrecy as being part of the ‘epistemic architecture’ (p. 115) of organizing, they are really pushing towards something more profound. That is to say that, as Mary Douglas would have it, organizations are thought made durable, and secrecy is how institutions think (1987). Extending Costas and Grey’s claims then, perhaps beyond what they themselves would find comfortable, it seems to me that the construction and maintenance of boundaries is crucial to organizing. The idea of transparency in organizing, laudable in many ways, belies the fact that the control of information, and hence the production of secrecy, is constitutive of formal organization. Of course secrecy can exist outside formal organizations, as in the example of the lying lawyer who is also a lying father and husband, but formal organizations cannot exist without secrecy. The completely transparent organization would not be visible as an organization. In an age of conspiracies, when most people assume that organizations always lie, this book adds a great deal of nuance to that piece of cultural common sense.