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JournalISSN: 1749-9755

Cultural Sociology 

British Sociological Association
About: Cultural Sociology is an academic journal published by British Sociological Association. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Sociology & Sociology of culture. It has an ISSN identifier of 1749-9755. Over the lifetime, 611 publications have been published receiving 10422 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
John Law1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore a performative understanding of social science method and consider the plausibility of the claim that research methods generate not only representations of reality, but also the realities those representations depict.
Abstract: This article explores a performative understanding of social science method. First, it draws on STS to consider the plausibility of the claim that research methods generate not only representations of reality, but also the realities those representations depict. Second, it undertakes an archaeology of a major survey — a Eurobarometer investigation of European citizens' attitudes to farm animal welfare — in order to explore the character of its performativity. Finally, it considers some of the implications of the performativity of research tools for the future of methods in social science.

313 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the analytical potential of the Bourdieusian approach by exploring how education systems help to institutionalize cosmopolitanism as cultural capital whose access is rendered structurally unequal.
Abstract: In recent years, sociological research on cosmopolitanism has begun to draw on Pierre Bourdieu to critically examine how cosmopolitanism is implicated in stratification on an increasingly global scale. In this paper, we examine the analytical potential of the Bourdieusian approach by exploring how education systems help to institutionalize cosmopolitanism as cultural capital whose access is rendered structurally unequal. To this end, we first probe how education systems legitimate cosmopolitanism as a desirable disposition at the global level, while simultaneously distributing it unequally among different groups of actors according to their geographical locations and volumes of economic, cultural, and social capital their families possess. We then explore how education systems undergird profitability of cosmopolitanism as cultural capital by linking academic qualifications that signal cosmopolitan dispositions with the growing number of positions that require extensive interactions with people of multiple...

214 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use social network analysis to derive "positions" and "relations" between positions, as prioritized by Bourdieu, from data on concrete interactions and relations.
Abstract: This paper reflects upon Bourdieu’s concept of cultural fields, Becker’s concept of ‘art worlds’ and the concept of networks as developed in social network analysis. We challenge the distinction that Bourdieu makes between the objective ‘relations’ and ‘positions’ constitutive of ‘social space’ and visible social relationships. In contrast, we maintain that interaction is generative of social spaces and positions and should be integral to any account of them. Becker’s position is better from this perspective, but while Becker refers repeatedly to social networks, he fails to develop the concept or exploit its potential as a means of exploring social structures. Both Becker and Bourdieu have an underdeveloped conception of social connection which weakens their respective conceptions of the space of cultural production. Our proposed remedy is to use social network analysis to derive ‘positions’ and ‘relations’ between ‘positions’, as prioritized by Bourdieu, from data on concrete interactions and relations....

206 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202330
202247
202156
202033
201942
201843