Showing papers on "Taste (sociology) published in 2007"

Identity: Sociological Perspectives

Abstract: Questions about who we are, who we can be, and who is like and unlike us underpin a vast range of contemporary social issues. What makes our families so important to us? Why do we attach such significance to being ourselves? Why do so many television programmes promise to revolutionise our lives? Who are we really? In this highly readable new book, Steph Lawler examines a range of important debates about identity. Taking a sociological perspective, she shows how identity is produced and embedded in social relationships, and worked out in the practice of peoples everyday lives. She challenges the perception of identity as belonging within the person, arguing instead that it is produced and negotiated between persons. Chapter-by-chapter her book carefully explores topics such as the relationships between lives and life-stories, the continuing significance of kinship in the face of social change, and how taste works to define identity. For Lawler, without understanding identity, we can't adequately begin to understand the social world. This book will be essential reading on upper-level courses across the social sciences that focus on the compelling issues surrounding identity.

Those Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology:

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.

Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances

Abstract: This study examines how a social network profile's lists of interests-music, books, movies, television shows, etc.-can function as an expressive arena for taste performance. By composing interest tokens around a theme, profile users craft their "taste statements." First, socioeconomic and aesthetic influences on taste are considered, and the expressivity of interest tokens is analyzed using a semiotic framework. Then, a grounded theory approach is taken to identify four types of taste statements-those that convey prestige, differentiation, authenticity, and theatrical persona. The semantics of taste and taste statements are further investigated through a statistical analysis of 127,477 profiles collected from the MySpace social network site between November 2006 and January 2007. The major findings of the analysis include statistical evidence for prestige and differentiation taste statements and an interpretation of the taste semantics underlying the MySpace community-its motifs, paradigms, and demographic structures.

Consumer Culture: History, Theory And Politics

Abstract: THE RISE OF CONSUMER CULTURE Chapter 1: Capitalism and the Consumer Revolution Consumption, Production and Exchange The Genesis of Consumer Capitalism From Courts to Cities, from Luxuries to Fashion Chapter 2: The Cultural Production of Economic Value Commodity Flows, Knowledge Flows The Invention of the Consumer and the cultural trajectories of good Consumer Society as Historical Type THEORIES OF CONSUMER AGENCY Chapter 3: Utility and Social Competition The Sovereign Consumer The Limits of Economic Rationality Fashion, Style and Conspicuous Consumption Beyond Emulation Chapter 4: Needs, Manipulation and Simulation From Commodity Fetishism to Critical Theory Nature, Authenticity and Resistance Post-Modern Pessimism Social Relations and Consumption Chapter 5: Taste, Identity and Practices Taste and Distinction Cultural Classification and Identity Appropriating Commodities Ambivalence and Practice THE POLITICS OF CONSUMPTION Chapter 6: Representation and Consumerism The Anti-Consumerist Rhetoric and the Apology of Consumption Advertising Cultures and their Languages The Functions and Meanings of Ads Ideology, Social Differences and Consumerism Chapter 7: Commodities and Consumers Commoditization and De-commoditization Goods, Values and the Boundaries of Commoditization The Normalization of Consumption Chapter 8: Contexts of Consumption Leisure, Commercial Institutions and Public Places The Home, the Commercialization of Feelings and Cultural Consumption Local Consumption in Mcdonaldized settings Alternative Consumption and Social Movements

No money shot?: commerce, pornography and new sex taste cultures

Abstract: This paper examines two Internet websites – Nerve, a magazine devoted to ‘smart smut’ and SuicideGirls, an ‘altporn’ site where softcore sexual display is a major component of a participatory taste culture. Through a consideration of the ways such sites present their commercial and community elements as part of a shared taste and aesthetic, the paper investigates how some new forms of pornography are developing to construct sexual display as a form of recreation, self-presentation and community building.

Style and social identities : alternative approaches to linguistic heterogeneity

Abstract: This volume presents an interactional perspective on linguistic variability that takes into account the construction of social identities through the formation of social communicative styles. It shows that style is a useful category in bridging the gap between single parameter variation and social identity. Social positioning, i.e., finding one's place in society, is one of its motivating forces. Various aspects of the expression of stylistic features are focused on, from language choice and linguistic variation in a narrow sense to practices of social categorization, pragmatics patterns, preferences for specific communicative genres, rhetorical practices including prosodic features, and aesthetic choices and preferences for specific forms of taste (looks, clothes, music, etc.). These various features of expression are connected to multimodal stylistic indices through talk; thus, styles emerge from discourse. Styles are adapted to changing contexts, and develop in the course of social processes. The analytical perspective chosen proposes an alternative to current approaches to variability under the influence of the so-called variationist paradigm.

The Heirloom Tomato as Cultural Object: Investigating Taste and Space

Abstract: This article asks how the heirloom tomato emerged as a cultural object in the late twentieth century, from something grown by individual seedsaving gardeners into a status symbol available for $7 a pound at speciality markets. This article finds that a combination of structural changes (increasing industrial farming on the one hand, and the turn to organic, local and ‘authentic’ food experiences on the other) as well as the activities of individual activist chefs and seedsavers has led to the tomatoes' emergence in a broader arena of consumption. But the article also reveals a significant spatial dimension to this apparent change in meaning. The heirloom tomato certainly emerges as a symbol of elite status in the pages of popular magazines and newspapers by the early twenty-first century – but the act of ‘distinction’ and the marketplace in which it happens are spatially demarcated and do not interfere with the access of non-elites to the object. Thus I offer an explanation of how this cultural object is created over time, but at the same time emphasise the importance of attending to location and spatiality in the study of taste, distinction and culture.

Classical Greece: Consumption

Abstract: This chapter describes the consumption patterns, in classical Greece, which were affected by regional productive capacities, inter-regional distribution, and several social and geographical biases, as well as ideology and taste. It gives some quantitative assessment of standards of living in comparison to earlier and later periods. Since markets and exchange supplied only a certain amount of domestic consumption, the chapter explores under what conditions consumption turned into demand that affected the economy more generally. Basic information about ancient nutrition can be gained from the remains of human bones. Average height changed little from the Bronze Age to the classical period, and possibly increased slightly for men thereafter. The discrepancy between Mycenae and Lerna may indicate a class difference. The need for imported grain varied from year to year with periods of extraordinary demand at times of food crisis. The seasonality of demand put high pressure on administration and planning, and could not be satisfied by regular markets.

Deconstructing Cultural Omnivorousness 1982–2002: Heterology in Americans' Musical Preferences

Abstract: This research examines heterogeneity in Americans' musical tastes by separating breadth and level of taste, taking into account the structural constraints such as cohort, period, social class, gender and racial composition, which have shaped Americans' musical preferences over the past 20 years. We identify four types of respondents who share similar taste patterns that correspond to different degrees of omnivorousness: omnivores, limited, temperates and moderates. We argue that taste patterns deviate from the usual elitist basis in that omnivores are depicted as both highbrow individuals with lowbrow taste and non-highbrow individuals with lowbrow taste. We also find that structural constraints have little impact on breadth of tastes among omnivores and a relatively high impact on breadth of tastes among limited, temperates and moderates. Heterology is emphasized (rather than the Bourdieuvian homology) in an examination of the equivalence between the social structure and the cultural sphere. Heterology recognizes that breadth and level of taste are two independent dimensions of cultural consumption.

Art Rules: Pierre Bourdieu and the Visual Arts

Abstract: The French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu is now recognized as a major contemporary critique of culture and the Visual Arts. His work was developed over a fifty year career which took in major studies of education, museums, photography, painting, the media and taste. This book sets out to do what no other has so far achieved. It exclusively addresses Bourdieu’s work on the Visual Arts. Over its three parts and eight chapters it gives an in-depth coverage of Bourdieu’s theory of culture and aesthetics. It describes Bourdieu’s background and the development of his thinking throughout his career. His main ‘thinking tool’ are described and located within his overall ‘theory of practice’. There is discussion of aesthetics in terms of his social philosophy. A line is traced from Kant through salient views to aestheticism and its significance in art and culture. Bourdieu’s own response to this tradition is described. This theory of practice is then applied to three practical case examples: Museums, Photography and Painting. A chapter is dedicated to each of these. In each one, a Bourdieusian perspective is brought to bear on contexts not dealt with by Bourdieu himself. There is analysis of the Tate, MOMA and the Musee d’Orsay. Photography is considered as a ‘mid-brow’ art with examples from pop, journalism and ‘artist-photographers’. Finally, the book deals with painting. Based on Bourdieu’s own work on the ‘pre-impressionist’ Manet, this example is contrasted with such artistic movements as the Young British Artists of the 1990s and American Expressionism. Finally, the theory and practical examples are used as a springboard to address Visual Arts in the 21st Century. The ‘problem of aesthetics’ is reconsidered in the light of post-modernism and Bourdieu’s theory. A new perspective to the Visual Arts in the twenty-first century is provided based on his approach. The book sets out to identify the ‘rules of art’: how artistic fields function and the implications their processes have for Art and artistic practice.

Haute Couture in Tehran: Two Faces of an Emerging Fashion Scene

Abstract: This article sketches a map of the formation of taste in Iran and the circulation of desire across class and geographic borders. Focusing on haute couture production in Tehran, it focuses on the careers of two designers. Discussing their sources of inspiration and the expectations of their clients, it illustrates different understandings of fashion in the city. Ideas about modernity, tradition, and the West are reworked according to the aesthetic approaches of each designer. Modernity and mobility are linked in fashion design practices, as they negotiate the tensions between state restrictions and consumer desires for fashion, modernity and bodily mobility. The ways in which designers rework or reinterpret Iranian traditional aesthetics brings to the fore the connections between Western sensibilities and those of the upper classes in Tehran. With Western taste and desires rather than Western dress informing highclass subjectivities in Tehran, dress inspired by traditional clothing is held in high ...

Dedicated Followers of Fashion An Economic Geographic Analysis of the Swedish Fashion Industry

Abstract: In fashion, as in the rest of the economy, the globalisation of taste, power and production now plays a major role. The industry is dominated by fashion capitals like Paris, London or New York, populated by star designers like Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld or Jean-Paul Gaultier and controlled through MNC giants like Prada, Gucci, DKNY and Dior, who together influence consumer preferences on a global scale. However, there are numerous smaller actors that compete successfully in the fashion industry. Sweden is one such example, where fashion is a growing. In this thesis, there is a focus on group of small and medium sized Swedish fashion firms with a brand focused business strategy. Their products are design intensive, but their main competitive advantage rests on the brand and brand management. This group of firms are proficient at ‘putting fashion into clothes’ (Weller 2004). In other words, their main competitive advantage rests neither on price, nor on the most experimental design. More exactly, they produce clothes for a fashion conscious but not too adventurous consumer group. In the thesis it is argued that they are better described as trend forerunners than as trend setters. The subject of this thesis is this group of firms within the Swedish fashion industry and the aim is to improve understanding of their innovation processes, competitiveness, and the systemic character of the business they are a part of. As with most other fashion firms in high cost countries, Swedish companies has outsourced the garment production. They secure their competitive edge through high value added activities like design, marketing and retail. This points to the fact that fashion has both material and immaterial dimensions: it relates to clothing, design, textile and quality, but also to consumers’ subjective feelings and attitudes towards the clothes and their brands. This is a study of the interface between these dimensions, with a focal point on the production of immaterial and symbolic value. The systemic nature of fashion can hardly be overestimated. This goes for both the practical part of clothes production, but also for the production of a belief system created not only by fashion producers but by a whole set of institutional actors. This thesis has an analysis of fashion firms’ relations to business partners, competitors, media, and consumers. It is argued that the nature of these relations is critical for competition and success.The thesis is a collection of papers, which illuminates different parts of innovation, competition and business strategies in the fashion industry. The papers cover the central activity areas for fashion firms: how branding is affecting industrial structure and innovation, how symbolic is value created, and how ‘cool’ is used as a strategic resource.

The Picturesque: Architecture, Disgust and Other Irregularities

Abstract: In this fresh and authoritative account John Macarthur presents the eighteenth century idea of the picturesque – when it was a risky term concerned with a refined taste for everyday things, such as the hovels of the labouring poor – in the light of its reception and effects in modern culture. in a series of linked essays Macarthur shows:

Fashion as art: is fashion art?

Abstract: The question whether fashion can be regarded as a form of art begs the question of what kinds of things can legitimately be thus regarded. In the first section, some of the most recent contributions to dealing with this issue are critically analyzed. The conclusion that emerges is that—like art—clothes can provide the subject of historical research. The second section deals with the aesthetics of clothes. If sartorial fashion can be a form of art then we need an aesthetics of fashion. Whilst it would be difficult to contest the artistic quality of clothes throughout the centuries, fashion—like architecture—fulfills primarily a functional dimension. Some of the key concepts pertaining to classical aesthetics, such as taste in the writings of Edmund Burke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, and Immanuel Kant with special reference to Kant's less well-known writings on anthropology under which he classified fashion, are discussed. Some of the more recent contributions such as Curt J. Ducasse's brilli...

Food: The History of Taste

Abstract: Introduction: A New History of Cuisine 1. Hunter-Gatherers and the First Farmers 2. The Good Things That Lay at Hand 3. The Quest for Perfect Balance 4. The Pleasures of Consumption 5. Feasting and Fasting 6. New Worlds, New Tastes 7. The Birth of the Consumer Age 8. Chefs, Gourmets and Gourmands 9. Dining Out 10. Novelty and Tradition - The New Landscape for Gastronomy.

Audiences and everyday aesthetics: Talking about good and bad music

Abstract: The first part of this article outlines a dilemma in cultural studies and sociology of culture regarding the politics of aesthetics. This concerns whether discourse about the evaluation of symbolic forms serves to reinforce power relations and maintain divisions between people and communities, or whether evaluation can serve as a basis for greater commonality. One way of at least beginning to address this issue is to attend to the 'everyday aesthetics' of media audiences, exemplified here in the ordinary evaluative discourse of music users. The second part of the article reports on interview research about musical tastes and values. It analyses these interviews for evidence of the ways in which evaluative statements might involve making connections with others, or alternatively how they may act as barriers to social connectivity or community. How and to what extent might ordinary musical evaluation be thought of as part of potential aesthetic public spheres?

Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking

Abstract: From the Iron Age to the Industrial Revolution, the Romans to the Regency, few things have mirrored society or been affected by its upheavals as much as the food we eat and the way we prepare it. In this involving history of the British people, Kate Colquhoun celebrates every aspect of our cuisine from Anglo-Saxon feasts and Tudor banquets, through the skinning of eels and the invention of ice cream, to Dickensian dinner-party excess and the growth of frozen food. Taste tells a story as rich and diverse as a five-course dinner.

Capital, Consumption, Communication, and Citizenship: The Social Positioning of Taste and Civic Culture in the United States

Abstract: In this article, the authors analyze the field of cultural consumption in the United States. Using the 2000 DDB Lifestyle Study, they examine a cross-section of Americans in terms of their occupational categories, media usage, consumption practices, social behaviors, and indicators of civic and political engagement. In doing so, the authors find many parallels to the determinants of taste, cultural discrimination, and choice within the field structure observed by Bourdieu in 1960s French society. However, there are also some notable differences in terms of the composition of cultural capital consistent with the concept of omnivorousness. The distribution of positions is largely defined by patterns of taste that discriminate between refinement, moderation, nurturance, and a communal orientation, on one side, and coarseness, excess, aggressiveness, and an individual orientation, on the other. Historical and national differences partly account for this variation, but a major role may be played by the increas...

Big Social Science History

Abstract: Social science historians engage in relatively few large, collaborative projects, yet many of their activities, especially data collection and several aspects of analysis, benefit from what economists call economies of scale. Here I briefly review the historical background of big projects, place research by social science historians in perspective relative to other disciplines, and ponder possible explanations for the dearth of collaborative efforts. Large projects are not to everyone’s taste, and they demand vision, logistical skills, and fund-raising. In conclusion, I suggest 15 large projects that are interesting and feasible.