In this episode, dr. Julian Schaap (Erasmus University Rotterdam) talks to prof.dr. Jeroen van der Waal (EUR) and dr. Joost Oude Groeniger (EUR) about the relation between health inequalities and social and cultural inequalities. Negative health outcomes such as low life expectancy and disease prevalence are often linked to lower classes, usually followed by an explanation that looks at socio-economic causes. If healthier food is made cheaper, this will contribute to lower health inequalities, some say. However, cultural sociologists have increasingly uncovered how not only socio-economic factors, but also one's taste and cultural consumption contributes to these health disparities. How does cultural capital effect influence health outcomes?

Readings

Groeniger, J. O., Kamphuis, C. B., Mackenbach, J. P., Beenackers, M. A., & van Lenthe, F. J. (2019). Are socio-economic inequalities in diet and physical activity a matter of social distinction? A cross-sectional study. International Journal of Public Health 64(7): 1037-1047.

Oude Groeniger, Joost, et al. (2020). How does cultural capital keep you thin? Exploring unique aspects of cultural class that link social advantage to lower body mass index." Sociology of Health & Illness.

In this episode, Giselinde speaks with Bruno Cousin (assistant professor at SciencesPo Paris) and Sébastien Chauvin (associate prof at University of Lausanne) about the elite culture of what is popularly called 'the top 1 percent'. Based on their research on the French Caribbean luxury destination of St Barths, social clubs in Milan, and Ashley Mears' ethnographic work on 'party girls' and promoters in VIP nightclubs, they discuss questions about elite culture in a time of globalization. What do we learn from ethnographic work on the top 1 percent? How do elites manage to exploit others' capital? How are elite distinction patterns changing in a time of globalization? And what are the theoretical implications for Bourdieusian approaches?

Cousin, Bruno and Sébastien Chauvin (2017). Old Money, Networks and Distinction: The Social and Service Clubs of Milan’s Upper Classes. Pp. 147-165 in Cities and the Super-Rich. Real Estate, Elite Practic-es, and Urban Political Economies, edited by Ray Forrest, Sin Yee Koh and Bart Wissink. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

http://sebastienchauvin.org/wp-content/uploads/Chapter_8_Cousin_Chauvin_Old_Money_Networks_Distinction-2017-PUB.pdf

Cousin, Bruno and Sébastien Chauvin (2013). Islanders, immigrants and millionaires: the dynamics of upper-class segregation in St Barts, French West Indies. Pp. 186-200 in Geographies of the Super-Rich, edited by Iain Hay. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

http://sebastienchauvin.org/wp-content/uploads/Cousin-Chauvin2013-Islanders-immigrants-millionnaires.pdf

Mears, Ashley (2015). “Working for Free in the VIP: Relational Work and the Production of Con-sent.” American Sociological Review 80(6): 1099–1122

Background reading:

Cousin, Bruno, Shamus Khan and Ashley Mears. 2018. “Theoretical and methodological pathways for research on elites.” Socio-Economic Review 16(2): 225-249.

Mears, A. (2020) Very Important people: status and beauty in the global party circuit. Princeton: Princeton UP https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168654/very-important-people

While ‘canons’ of culture were dismantled decades ago by postmodern, postcolonial and feminist critics, evaluative judgements about ‘the best’ and ‘best ever’ continue unabated in the cultural field and in everyday life. We find examples of these judgements in the prizes and awards bestowed by powerful institutions but also in the relentless to and fro of internet forum discussions among individuals. How might we make sense of these evaluative judgements using sociological approaches? How do judgements at an individual and collective level intersect? How do they play out over time? How do they relate to the specific logics of cultural fields? In what ways are they expressive of wider societal inequalities? How can we distinguish between various types of judgement (ethical, aesthetic, instrumental)? How can we research their cumulative logic over time?

This episode is hosted by dr. Simon Stewart, Reader in Sociology and Director of the Centre for European and International Studies Research at the University of Portsmouth.

Readings

Stewart, S. (2018). Making evaluative judgements and sometimes making money: independent publishing in the 21stCentury. Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, 3(2).

Stewart, S. (2020). Celebrity Capital, field-specific aesthetic criteria and the status of cultural objects: the case of Masked and Anonymous. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(1), 54-70.

Classed bodies: Weight, appearance and class distinction by Culture & Inequality Podcast

In this episode, dr. Julian Schaap (EUR)talks with dr. Jo Haynes (University of Bristol) on the role of race, ethnicity and gender in music. Of all forms of popular culture and art, popular music remains one of the primary platforms of identity formation. While music alledgedly ‘brings people together’ across various sociatal cleavag-es, in practice we see that music genres – as with many cultural genres in general – are shaped by and reflective of social divisions in society. In the session, we will focus on the relationship be-tween social categories such as gender and race/ethnicity, and popular music, to understand how cultural production and consumption play a role in the construction, maintainance and/or deconstruction of symbolic boundaries based on gender and race/ethnicity. By zooming in on cases within (popular) music – why are there relatively few people of color in rock music? Why is hip-hop often perceived to serve minority voices? – we aim to expolate to larger questions of (popular) cul-ture, difference and inequality.

Readings:

Haynes, Jo (2010). In the blood: The racializing tones of music categorization. Cultural Sociology 4(1): 81-100

Hesmondhalgh, David, & Saha, A. (2013). Race, ethnicity, and cultural production. Popular Communication 11(3): 179-195.

Schaap, Julian, & Berkers, Pauwke (2019). “Maybe it’s… skin colour?” How race-ethnicity and gender function in consumers’ formation of classification styles of cultural content. Consumption Markets & Culture 1-17.

In this session, we are joined by dr. Simone Varriale from the University of Lincoln, UK. He introduces students to the ways in which key concepts from cultural sociology - such as cultural capital, habitus and symbolic boundaries - have been used in the study of international migration, with a focus on cultural and economic inequalities among mobile EU citizens. We will discuss how relatively privileged white migrants mobilise unequal resources in their strategies of social mobility and social distinction, and how migration triggers processes of boundary-drawing and stigmatisation connected to class, race, age and social mobility.

Oliver C. and O'Reilly, K. (2010) A Bourdieusian Analysis of Class and Migration: Habitus and the Individualizing Process. Sociology 44(1): 49-66.

Erel U. 2010. Migrating cultural capital: Bourdieu in Migration studies, Sociology 44(4): 642-660.

Varriale, S. 2019. Unequal youth migrations: exploring the synchrony between social ageing and social mobility among post-crisis European migrants. Sociology 53(6): 1160-1176

Why do cultural producers discriminate when they think they are open to novelty? Why is it so difficult for people of colour or lower class people to enter the cultural industries? And how can we study such processes of exclusion in the cultural industry when people are not aware of them and so adamantly reject that they discriminate? Dr Dave O'Brien (University of Edinburgh) and dr. Jennifer Lena (Columbia University) discuss these and other topics related to the inequality of cultural production in this engaging session, based on the following readings:

Brook, O., O’Brien, D. and Taylor, M. (2020) Culture is bad for you: Inequality in the cultural and creative industries Manchester: Manchester University Press, Chapters 2 and 8.

Lena, Jennifer (2019). Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapters 2 and 7.

Koppman, Sharon (2016). Different Like Me: Why Cultural Omnivores Get Creative Jobs. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(2): 291–33

Childress, Clayton and Nault, Jean-Francois (2019). Encultured Biases: The Role of Products in Pathways to Inequality. American Sociological Review 84(1): 115-141.

Presentation: dr. Dave O'Brien & dr. Jennifer Lena

Editing: Luuc Brans & Giselinde Kuipers

Intro and outro tune by professor Timothy J. Dowd.

On this episode Drs Laurie Hanquinet and Dave O’Brien discuss the sociology of cultural consumption. Cultural consumption matters in lots of different ways, from telling us about the value and meaning of cultural objects, through how people get access to jobs and professions, to underpinning power and inequality across entire societies! We discuss the relationship between culture and social inequalities, looking at how cultural hierarchies have changed over time, but social inequalities seem to have persisted. In particular, we think about class and race within these social and cultural hierarchies, reflecting on the new forms of distinction adopted by social elites who are superficially open and democratic in their cultural tastes.

On this episode's hosts:

Dr. Laurie Hanquinet is professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles. She specializes in cultural consumption, theories of cultural capital, socio-cultural inequalities, and social stratification. She published works on the visitors of modern and contemporary art museums (‘Du musée aux pratiques culturelles‘, Ed. de l’Université de Bruxelles) and on different dimensions of cultural participation and social engagement. She's the co-editor of the ‘Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture’ (with Mike Savage). She also worked on themes such as ethnicity, intergroups relations and European identity.

Dr. Dave O'Brien is Chancellor’s Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the Edinburgh College of Art (University of Edinburgh). Cultural and Creative Industries represent an important area of social, economic, and academic concern, posing research questions and engagement opportunities that range across a number of Art, Humanities and Social Science disciplines. These questions and opportunities are reflected in Dave’s inter-, multi- and cross-disciplinary approach to studying Cultural and Creative Industries. He is the host of the new books in critical theory podcast and you can follow him on twitter: @drdaveobrien.​​​​​​

This episode's readings:

Banks, P. (2012) ‘Cultural Socialization in Black Middle-Class Families’ Cultural Sociology 6(1) 61-73

Freidman, S. and Reeves, A. (2020) ‘From Aristocratic to Ordinary: Shifting Modes of Elite Distinction’ American Sociological Review 85(2) 323-350

Hanquinet, L (2018) ‘Inequalities: when culture becomes a capital’ in Durrer, V., Miller, T. and O’Brien, D. (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Global Cultural Policy London: Routledge

Hazir, I. and Warde, A. (2016) ‘The cultural omnivore thesis: Methodological aspects of the debate’ in Hanquinet and Savage (eds) Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture London: Routledge

Presentation: Laurie Hanquinet and Dave O'Brien

Editing: Iris Verhulsdonk

Intro and outro tunes: Timothy Dowd

What happens when the boundaries of what counts as art shift in American museums such as the Met? And how do elites maintain power in the process of opening up the arts? Is Rockefeller a villain or a hero in this story? And what do we gain from looking at art to study the dynamics of culture and power? In this episode, Phillipa Chong, assistant professor at McMaster University interviews Jennifer Lena, associate professor at Columbia on the shifting boundaries and shifting inequalities in the American art scene.

Readings:

Lena, Jennifer. C. (2019). Chapter 3: The Museum of Primitive Art. Entitled: Discriminating tastes and the expansion of the arts. Princeton University Press.

Chong, Phillipa. (2018). Everyone’s A Critic? Openness as a Means to Closure in Cultural Journalism', The M in CITAMS@ 30 (Studies in Media and Communications, Volume 18).

Phillipa Chong’s research is about how we define and evaluate worth, both in relation to social groups and social objects. Her empirical focus is on book reviewers as market intermediaries in the cultural market. She just released the book Inside the Critics' Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton UP) on the politics of book reviewing.

Jennifer Lena’s research focuses on processes of classification, particularly the organizational and institutional conditions for the creation, modification, or elimination of cultural categories. Before Entitled, she published a book on the communities surrounding musical genres Banding Together: How Communities Create Genre in Popular Music (Princeton UP)

Presentation: dr. Phillipa Chong & dr. Jennifer Lena

Introduction: Luuc Brans

Audio edit: Iris Verhulsdonk

Intro and outro tune: professor Timothy Dowd

In this first pilot episode, we discuss the core themes of the course: how do culture and inequality relate? This meeting will discuss why and how this has become such a central theme in sociology and other disciplines (notably cultural studies, anthropology), how this relation this been theorized in various theoretical traditions (notable field theory, British cultural studies, and American cultural sociology); and how has this been empirically analyzed? Moreover, we will offer a first exploration of the continued relevance of these insights on culture and inequality for contemporary societies, and for the everyday life of (young) people today.

Please note that this is a pilot version of our podcast and we are aware that the audio quality is not up to par. Please bear with us, as we think the conversation is worth your attention regardless, and please provide us with feedback.

Presentation: Giselinde Kuipers & Luuc Brans

Audio production edit: Iris Verhulsdonk