Taste and Social Mobility

Depuis sa parution en France en 1970, La culture du pauvre a marqué plusieurs générations de sociologues, politistes et historiens. Ses analyses des styles de vie populaires et des expériences des « boursiers » influencent toujours les études françaises des mobilités sociales et des rapports de classe. Paradoxalement, elles n’ont guère fait l’objet en France de débats ou de revisites. Fondé sur des enquêtes récentes et des sources empiriques variées, pour certaines inédites, cet article vise à répondre aux questions suivantes : comment cet ouvrage est-il devenu un « classique » des sciences sociales françaises ? Quels chantiers a-t-il ouverts ou, au contraire, négligés ? Enfin, et surtout, quelle pertinence conserve-t-il pour la société française contemporaine ? En proposant à la fois un détour par l’histoire d’une importation intellectuelle, un retour aux textes et des pistes d’actualisation, il s’agit d’inviter à des usages plus distanciés et mieux armés des analyses hoggartiennes. Cette revisite entend ainsi contribuer à déroutiniser le rapport à Hoggart, en insistant notamment sur la portée et les limites de deux aspects de son livre qui sont encore aujourd’hui souvent utilisés : la structure « eux »/« nous » et l’expérience des « déclassés par le haut ».

This paper uses the findings from a new study of cultural tastes and participation in the UK to explore the characteristics of the cultural omnivore. It identifies some uncertainty in the existing literature about the precise elements of an omnivorous orientation in relation to (i) the relative importance of volume and composition of omnivorous tastes, (ii) the reliance on the secondary analysis of survey data for the identification and exposition of omnivorousness and (iii) the relationship between tolerance for a range of cultural items and other forms of tolerance. Taking as a starting point the claim that cultural omnivores are relatively open to diversity, and drawing on both survey data and qualitative interviews with omnivores, the paper analyses the characteristics of an omnivorous portfolio and considers in detail what and how omnivores dislike. It concludes that, whilst there is strong evidence of a decline in overt snobbishness in the UK, there is also evidence that omnivores have a more intensive involvement with ‘legitimate’ culture which goes alongside a selective appropriation of popular culture. In particular their dislikes reveal limits to openness which imply, paradoxically, a role for an omnivorous orientation in processes of distinction.

‘In what is usually called “the heritage debate” – and which has involved many of us within film and cultural studies over a long period of time – we have all made endless suppositions about the audiences who watch the films about which we wrangle. A book which actually conducts a proper analysis of these audiences is long overdue. It is doubly pleasing that
when this book appears, it should be written by one of the leading proponents within that debate, and written with all Claire Monk’s rigorous scholarship, in her inimitable
and elegant style.’
– Pamela Church Gibson, Reader in Cultural and Historical Studies London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London

The concept of ‘heritage cinema’ is now firmly established as an influential – but also much-debated and contested – critical framework for the discussion of period or historical representation in film, most prominently with reference to British heritage and ‘post-heritage’ successes since the 1980s, but also to comparable examples from Europe, North America and beyond. These successes have ranged from Merchant Ivory’s A Room with a View, Maurice, Howards End and The Remains of the Day, via Jane Austen adaptations such as Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility to post-heritage adaptations such as Sally Potter’s Orlando. Yet the very idea of the heritage film has rested on untested assumptions about its audiences.

This book breaks significant new ground in the scholarship on contemporary period films, and makes a distinctive new contribution to the growing field of film-audience studies, by presenting the first empirically based study of the audiences for ‘quality’ period films. Monk engages directly with two highly contrasting sections of these audiences, surveyed in the UK in the late 1990s, to explore their identities, their patterns of viewing and wider film taste, and above all their attitudes and pleasures – in relation to the period films they enjoy, and on issues central to debates around the heritage film, literary adaptation and cultural value – with illuminating and unpredicted results.

From bottle gardens, the bachelor pad and Batman to designer gnomes and monogamy spray, this book uses a diverse range of objects to explore the changing significance of kitsch. With its unique approach to its subject, Kitsch! Cultural politics and taste promises to advance debates in cultural studies and sociology around taste, while providing an invaluable introduction for students and interested readers.

Kitsch! examines how the idea of kitsch is mobilised – progressively, as bad taste, as camp and as cool – to inform notions of identity and sensibility. The figure of ‘kitsch man’ – a degenerate with politically dubious taste – looms large in the extant biography of kitsch and is here shown to be gendered, racialised and classed. Where most studies proceed from the kitsch object, this book takes the moment of aesthetic judgement as its starting point and attempts to identify the ideological work performed by the category itself, especially as kitsch enters a seemingly more casual phase of its lifecourse. The book poses the strongest challenge to those who argue that taste is democratised in contemporary culture, offering ample evidence that judgements of taste have shifted ground rather than relaxed.

Above all, the story of kitsch proposed by the authors is intended to disturb kitsch’s reputation as the source of a ready-made sensibility and politics. Kitsch has a history and not, as it has been supposed, an essence and is consequently the site of love, hate, joy, exasperation, irony, nausea and all of the twisted possibilities between.

There is a famous Yiddish joke about the Jewish Robinson Crusoe. It seems that after many years as a castaway he had built a whole city. When rescuers finally came, he showed them around all he had built, pointing out the synagogue, the residence, the workshops, the market, a beautiful garden, the synagogue...."Wait," said one of the sailors. "Why are there two synagogues?" "Well," said the castaway,  pointing to the nearest, "this is where I worship. That one I wouldn't be caught dead in."

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.

This paper offers some speculative discussion about the current state of the “omnivore” debate, instigated by Richard A. Peterson. It argues that debates about the social patterning of tastes need to take greater account of changed practices of cultural production as well as consumption through the identification of two “stories of abundance” in the cultural realm. The first relates to accounts of the changing and expanding cultural industries, whilst the second considers the rich variety of widely available culture enabled by various technologies of distribution. Taking these stories into account, the paper argues that sociological analyses of cultural hierarchy might lag behind those that are mundane and everyday to both cultural producers and consumers and that an orientation to culture that ranges across established hierarchies is increasingly unremarkable. Such a change is related to the structural and discursive means through which culture is circulated. The paper concludes that cultural analysts need to modify their theoretical models and their methodological approaches to better reflect a variegated field of culture and a more fluid cultural hierarchy. In the tradition of both Peterson and Bourdieu, contemporary analyses of patterns of cultural consumption and taste need to take fuller account of the ways in which culture is produced, circulated and valued if they are to maintain their explanatory power

This study surveys recent research on print-era scrapbooks and contemporary social media to highlight commonalities between the two formats, both in terms of the practices they have historically promoted for users, and the methodological challenges they produce for researchers. It argues that scrapbooks and social media can be conceptualized as sites of personal media assemblage and personal media archives, a designation that highlights the simultaneously social and archival dimensions of each form. After discussing these formal similarities, the author identifies three shared functions: (1) documenting friendship, (2) navigating new media abundance, and (3) communicating taste and building cultural capital. By drawing functional and formal parallels between the two media, the goal is to observe how these ‘old’ and ‘new’ technologies might mutually shed light on each other’s neglected social and archival dimensions, offering scholars a wider range of angles from which to approach them as cultural and biographical texts.

This article discusses the use of material generated in a mixed method investigation into cultural tastes and practices, conducted in Britain from 2003 to 2006, which employed a survey, focus groups and household interviews. The study analysed the patterning of cultural life across a number of fields, enhancing the empirical and methodological template provided by Bourdieu's Distinction. Here we discuss criticisms of Bourdieu emerging from subsequent studies of class, culture and taste, outline the arguments related to the use of mixed methods and present illustrative results from the analysis of these different types of data.We discuss how the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods informed our analysis of cultural life in contemporary Britain. No single method was able to shed light on all aspects of our inquiry, lending support to the view that mixing methods is the most productive strategy for the investigation of complex social phenomena.

"Du siehst ja, bei uns ist es nicht wie bei den anderen Russen", erklärt mir Pawel 1 , während er mich durch die Wohnung führt. Hinter der Fassade eines unscheinbaren, fünfstöckigen, Fünfzigerjahre-Wohnhauses in Köln, der piefigen westdeutschen Variante des massenhaften Wohnungsbaus der Nachkriegszeit, liegt eine hochwertig und bedacht eingerichtete Dreizimmerwohnung. Moderne Markenmöbel und Küchengeräte, ein Esstisch aus hellem Holz und Milchglas und ein Vitrinenschrank im Antikstil bestimmen das Wohnzimmer. Ein anderes Zimmer ist veilchenblau gestrichen und mit passenden Gardinen dekoriert. Ein Biedermeiersekretär, das Geschenk zum dritten Hochzeitstag, zeigt, dass Valentina, Valja genannt, und Pawel, mit ihren 35 und 34 Jahren etabliert sind und "auf eigenen Beinen stehen" (Valja). Beide verdienen "normal", entwerfen ihr Leben dauerhaft in Köln und können "nach und nach" kaufen, was wirklich zu ihnen "passt". Dies konfrontiert sie jedoch mit der Frage, was sie mit ihrem Lebensstil über sich aussagen. Die beiden legen Wert auf gute Qualität und individuellen Geschmack. "Wir sind nicht reich genug, um billige Sachen zu kaufen", erklärt Pawel und Valja ergänzt: "Wir wissen sehr gut, dass Ikea nicht fürs ganze Leben ist". Später fügt sie hinzu: "Verstehst du, die Individualität, die du kaufen kannst, auch versuchen zu kaufen." Vor dem Hintergrund einer als gleichförmig beschriebenen sozialistischen Konsumkultur ist besonders Valentina auf Individualität bedacht: "Weil dieser Rahmen der Sowjetunion, mich immer, bis jetzt, ist es bei mir alles so. Jedes Mal befürchte ich, dass bei allen alles gleich ist."

he short circuit sign is one in which the signifier (the part carrying the message) and the signified (the meaning of the message) are the same. In a stop sign, that's not such a bad thing. However, I've noticed that contemporary style leads to people presenting themselves via short-circuit signs and this occurs for fear of being "read," or interpreted, in unintended ways. In other words, style is about controlling the message, with the self as the medium of that message. The cognitive and affective response, though, is one of "auto amputation," in which aspects of self, identity, and experience are willingly given up by those deploying certain styles. My favourite is still the smartphone user who gives up the use of a hand (and sometimes an entire arm) instead of putting the thing in a pocket. Good luck watching your kids like that! There are more. Have a look. This is hopefully going to be a bit of a bigger project.

The article discusses the significance of cultural capital for the understanding of the field of housing in contemporary Britain. It explores the relationship between housing and the position of individuals in social space mapped out by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. It considers the material aspects of housing and the changing contexts that are linked to the creation and display of desire for social position and distinction expressed in talk about home decoration as personal expression and individuals' ideas of a `dream house'. It is based on an empirical investigation of taste and lifestyle using nationally representative survey data and qualitative interviews. The article shows both that personal resources and the imagination of home are linked to levels of cultural capital, and that rich methods of investigation are required to grasp the significance of these normally invisible assets to broaden the academic understanding of the field of housing in contemporary culture.

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.

This paper adds a comparative perspective to the study of taste, cosmopolitanism and social organisation. Drawing on material provided by two similar projects in the UK and Finland it explores the relationships between national and cosmopolitan taste cultures. Whilst there have been some recent attempts to study taste in a comparative perspective, the weight of sociological inquiry into taste is focussed on specific national spaces, including the France of Bourdieu’s (1984) seminal contribution. This tendency persists even as the production and circulation of culture is increasingly accepted as global. Global culture is assumed to be the driver of cosmopolitan ways of being, but is also interpreted as a threat to distinct national cultures. Studies of taste provide an empirical setting where the lived experience of global culture and the ambiguities of cosmopolitanism can be observed. Based on interviews and focus group discussions from the UK and Finland, the paper broadly concurs with those critics who see cosmopolitanism in the context of the maintenance of privileged political or symbolic positions of classes/status groups

Cet article, reposant sur une recherche ethnographique réalisée à Brasília et à São Paulo, se propose de suivre les transformations du café lors de son entrée sur le marché segmenté, lorsqu’il se trouve apprécié pour de nouvelles raisons et devient, en particulier, un art de la dégustation sensorielle. Dans ce but, 17 établissements ont été examinés et des questionnaires appliqués à 29 baristas. Les données recueillies permettent de suggérer une cartographie de la circulation des saveurs et des compétences dans les espaces de consommation du café.
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Based on an ethnography carried out in Brasilia and São Paulo, this article traces the ways in which coffee has changed as it enters the niche market, when it comes to be appreciated for new reasons, especially the art of sensory tasting. In total, seventeen coffee shops were investigated and questionnaires were completed by twenty-nine baristas. The result allowed us to create a cartography of the circulation of flavors and skills in the consumer spaces of coffee.

Drawing on two projects which develop the methodological model of Bourdieu’s Distinction in the UK and Finland, this paper explores the issues raised by the use of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and mixed methods in comparative work on cultural tastes. By identifying the problems in the construction of two comparable yet nationally relevant research instruments, the paper considers the importance of the similarities and differences in the meaning of items in different national spaces for Bourdieu-inspired comparative analysis. The paper also reports on the evident similarities between the two constructed spaces and draws on the dialogue between quantitative and qualitative methods enabled by MCA in examining what different positions in social space appear to mean in these countries country. It concludes by suggesting that, whilst Bourdieu’s model provides a robust set of methods for exploring relations between taste and class within nations, used appropriately, it can also provide particular insight to the comparison between national fields.

Research paper that showcases how "Everything Is Kitsch" in today's world due to globalization.

It focuses on Egypt and how globalization, social classes and the lack of having an individualistic culture; led to a major deculturation within the country.

The paper further provides a solution by showcasing the positive impact if all social classes join forces into seeing that kitsch is no longer the exclusive product of the uneducated masses but, is in fact today's global aesthetic. Also, by developing a "balanced" culture of individuality, could we then truly have a positive global influence (rather than being influenced) and take advantage of the fact that Egypt is a "kitsch museum".

It covers aspects regarding the 'Infitah' that occurred in Egypt, Entrepreneurship in Egypt and Arab Pop- artists to indicate a "balanced" culture of individualism is the best solution to generate global influence.