CULTURAL CAPITAL AND VISUAL ARTS

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• CULTURAL CAPITAL AND VISUAL ARTS
• Elizabeth Silva
• e.b.silva_at_open.ac.uk

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Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion A
critical investigation ESRC funded Mar 2003
Mar 2006Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth
Silva and Alan Warde
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Web site address for CCSE

• Details and some publication, as well as
  publication list can be found at
• http//www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/cultural-capi
  tal-and-social-exclusion/

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• the project
• 1. our research questions
• 2. our methods, and some procedures, of
  investigation
• 3. some of our analytical procedures in
  connection to these methods and procedures

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• 1. to assess whether we can detect cultural
  capital in contemporary Britain. If so, what form
  does it take?
• 2. to consider whether different cultural fields
  are explored along similar principles. If so,
  what is the nature of these similarities?
• 3. to what extent we can see a process of
  socio-cultural reproduction in existence in
  contemporary Britain. If so, how open are the
  cultural hierarchies to outsiders and the
  upwardly mobile?

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Focus groups

• 25 focus-group discussions
• between 4 and 8 participants per group, involving
  a total of 143 participants, including 74 women
  and 69 men.
• between March and July 2003
• a diversity of social backgrounds middle-class
  and working-class groups - African-Caribbean,
  Indian, Pakistani and white - different groups
  of specific occupational statuses -
  professionals (male and female), managers,
  landowners and farm managers, agricultural
  workers, skilled and unskilled workers, and the
  unemployed class, age, gays and lesbians
• 6 areas in the UK

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The survey

• November 2003 and March 2004
• applied to a nationwide representative sample of
  adults (18) resident in Britain
• 1,781 respondent main sample 1564, ethnic boost
  sample 227 (Indian, Pakistani and
  African-Caribbean)
• questions asked grouped under 29 different
  headings

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Household interviews observation

• 44 - Sep 2004 and Mar 2005 - 28 survey
  respondents, 2 from focus groups partners 14
  partnered interviewees.
• theoretical sample (i) cultural capital
  composition, (ii) the presence/absence of
  dependent children, (iii) geographical location,
  (iv) division between white and minority ethnic
  composition and (v) types of households
• 7 themes (1) housing, (2) kind of job/work, (3)
  cultural capital and leisure activities in
  selected fields, (4) involvement in household
  activities, (5) ideals of style/ appearance and
  desire for social position, (6) visual
  exploration of taste, (7) embarrassing situation
• observation and participation notes - location,
  housing, garden, decoration, collections,
  furniture, dress and comportment rapport

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Elite interviews

• April and July 2005
• eleven people - positions of particular
  prominence in business, politics, or other
  professions
• Template based on the household partner interview
  observation and participation notes

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Multiple Correspondence Analysis

• plotting peoples cultural preferences in
  Euclidian space
• graphically represent an unusually wide range of
  cultural tastes and practices
• method is inductive and descriptive and does
  not presuppose any particular ordering of
  practices will be found

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MCA highlights

• the cultural maps we produce do not smuggle
  assumptions about the social determinants of
  taste into them
• once we have constructed our cultural map, we are
  able to superimpose social categories onto it
• we can also locate every single individual in our
  survey uniquely - we can link our qualitative
  interviews to the cultural map

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MCA - axes

• the first axis differentiates on the basis of
  participation
• the second axis distinguishes contemporary/commer
  cial from established cultural tastes
• the third axis distinguishes types of likes and
  dislikes for mediatised representations of
  outwards pursuits from inwards ones
• the fourth axis distinguishes voracious from
  moderate cultural users

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MCA - patterns

• Firstly, we can see that the four figures do
  allow us to pull out certain homologies between
  the fields.
• Secondly, what do we make of the fact that the
  prime division, on our first axis, relates to
  issues of participation?
• Thirdly, our data suggest significant differences
  in the organization of British contemporary
  cultural life from that identified by Bourdieu.

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Visual Art

• In the MCA, visual art is the second most
  dominant field on axis 1 and by far the greatest
  contributor to axis 4.
• . The intensity of participation in visual art is
  highly relevant for social position, as shown by
  the levels of attendance (and of non-attendance)
  at art galleries and museums by different groups
  of people, together with indicators of ownership
  of original and high quality reproductions of art
  works, all of which were included as modalities
  in the MCA.

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• Margaret if I put that boat picture up there,
  like that wouldnt do anything for my kitchen...
  Im sort of trying to get things that would suit
  my kitchen you know and that does you know, you
  have It took me about three or four days to
  get those pictures for in here pointing to the
  wall. Do you know what I mean, I just didnt go
  out and get the first thing that I saw.

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• Beverley Im not overly keen on modern art, I
  mean my husband, my current husband is a fully
  trained artist at university so we have a lot of
  paintings at home.
• Interviewer That he did or he buys?
  
• Beverley That he did. I buy paintings -
• Interviewer You do, what sort of painting does
  he do? What sort of style?
• Beverley He prefers to do watercolours but he
  can do anything at various times people have
  commissioned him to do something, we have all
  kinds of different things in the house.
  
• Interviewer And what sort of paintings do you
  buy?
• Beverley I have some paintings that I buy, a
  chap called name- ..a-u-h-m, he lives locally
  but he sells well all over the UK and hes a
  friend of ours I obviously like the paintings
  but thats the other reason why weve bought
  them.
  
• Interviewer Whats his style?
  
• Beverley His style is naive.
  
• Interviewer Is he the only one or is there any
  other -
• Beverley My brother who died was very artistic
  as well and I have some of his work that was
  exhibited. - we also have a good friend,
  name whos a sculptor so we have some of
  her wall hangings, as well.

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• Cynthia A great friend who was in the art world,
  she was a 19th century expert and through her, I
  got to like name was My God!, and weve
  got one picture of his and that has gone up mad
  in value as you can imagine, wonderful. But
  the ones I really really like, Turner ... he
  was actually a friend of my fathers and I was
  taken to see his studios and things like that and
  Ive got quite a lot of not original inaudible
  tiny little thing when he scribbled something to
  my father, but thats about all.

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some conclusions

• understand the relationship between the structure
  of taste, knowledge and participation in visual
  art
• individuals positioned predominantly according to
  possession of cultural capital -- inflections
  linked to demographic divisions of gender, age
  and ethnicity and biographical patterns
• connections between class and cultural practice
  where the more educated and those in higher
  occupations prevail
• new? - involvement of women and of younger
  members of ethnic minorities

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More Conclusions

• Class matters.
• Class society continues to transmit privilege
  across generations.
• Divisions between professional, intermediate and
  working class.
• Educational qualifications homogenise the
  professional class.
• Cultural capital as basis of social cohesion
  within professional class?
• No simple distinction between high and popular
  culture but attendance at Arts performances
  continues to show hierarchical class gradient.