ONLINE DISCUSSION
[session 1 start: 21/04/2008 14:25  end: 21/04/2008 17:24]

Participants

Instructor

Warde Alan

Students

Rabbiosi Chiara

Sauris Tatiana

Catena Leonardo

Strutz Julia

Hufnagl-Eichiner Stefanie

Federica Davolio

Moderator

Torrisi Giovanni

Guest

Yuri Kazepov

To mantain the "live" and international feel of our "Meet the author" sessions, the trascription has not been edited except for typos and repetitions.

<Kazepov Yuri> Welcome to everybody. I guess we can start.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Good afternoon to everybody and to professor Alan Warde in particular. He will present today his article about taste and power that revisits the (in)famous Pierre Bourdieu's theory about taste and social class. Prof. Warde could introduce today issue while our participants can begin to post their questions.

<Warde Alan> Thank you for inviting me. Though I am unfamiliar with the communications technology, I am pleased to be here. My paper comes from a large project with other colleagues (Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Modesto Gayo-Cal and David Wright) which is something of a replication of the analysis in Distinction. The paper takes some material from focus groups discussions to capture some key issues in the relation between class and taste.

<Torrisi Giovanni> For the participants, just remember to press the button "question" before posting your questions. If needed, after the question, we could go directly into the "lesson" window in order to deepen the issue while we wait for the questions. While we wait for the participants, I would like to pose a question myself. It is about the Italian situation of the left parties after the recent elections. it's the first time in the history of the Italian republic that in parliament there is no left party represented. For most commentators (apart from the many issues about the division of the labor parties, and its failing communication strategies) this is due to a dissonance of "taste" between the citizens that classically would vote for the left parties... (factory workers, etc.) and the people that would supposedly represent them in parliament. Can you use the instruments of the "taste" in order to better understand the Italian situation? A situation in which most of the low income workers vote for the right parties (Berlusconi party and Lega Nord) instead of the left parties? Would you find anything similar in Britain? Is it a global phenomenon?

<Warde Alan> Giovanni, I'm not sure what sense this is a matter of 'taste'. However, the evidence from our survey, which was conducted in 2003, did not show up any strong shift of working class away from the Labour Party. Of course our left is different, and I am not very familiar with Italian politics, but the distinctive features of working class voting behavior in Britain is:

 (1) a tendency not to vote - there is relatively low levels of participation

 (2) a tendency to avoid the Liberal Democrat Party

Those with the most 'proletarian values - the old skilled manual working class, was likely to vote Labor. But it is a certain indifference and detachment that is perhaps most notable, rather than voting for the Right.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Your point is well taken, let me better express myself. Politics in Italy (especially after the Berlusconi's era) can be well considered as a "cultural" product" in itself, exactly as cinema or tv shows. So, voting a party or another, may become a matter of "taste".

<Warde Alan> That does not have any very direct consequence for choice of party, you might argue. The shift from Blair to Brown in the UK has raised all sorts of issues about the power of celebrity and presentation.
The good public media performer presumably could come from any party? The point about politics being inherently 'cultural' - leaving aside the dispute over what that term covers - is not so obvious in Britain. Money, pensions, etc are still central issues of today in UK party politics.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Many working class people in Italy argue: left (parties) are too snob, their language is too difficult, their ideas too idealist, they do not dress like us and we do not want to be like them. It seems to be a matter of "taste" more than a matter of political interest. But anyway, I see many other questions arising, so I leave the floor to them.

<Question from Sauris Tatiana> How taste is converted in social capital? which are instruments to do it?

<Warde Alan> Ps to last question: of course none of our politicians really own major media corporations!

<Torrisi Giovanni> (that's a huge difference indeed ;-)

<Warde Alan> Tatiana, I think that cultural taste works to oil the wheels of sociability. It was most obvious in some elite interviews that we conducted - briefly mentioned - that social networks of powerful people were organized around attendance at 'high' culture events. People meet and talk with, and identify people like themselves, through the articulation and attachment to tastes. It is not accidental among the population more generally that friendship and marriage tends to follow lines of taste too. The tendency for graduates to marry graduates is part of the story@

<Torrisi Giovanni> Tatiana, would you like to comment directly on prof. Warde's answer?

<Sauris Tatiana> So people pass by a social group to another not by work but more often by friendship and marriage?

<Warde Alan> I should say that Tatiana's question is a very good one and that one of the great challenges of research in this area is indeed to trace the connections between cultural and social capital. The workplace is another location for the transmission and exchange of tastes, as for instance Bonnie Erickson's work shows. And one of the key ways in which cultural capital provides advantage is through employment in the cultural industries, where knowing about culture is a source of contacts. While I probably should have mentioned colleagues as well as friends, when it comes ot participation in cultural events in Britain at least, colleagues are not the most likely companions.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Let's move to the next question by Marco Arlotti:

<Question from Arlotti Marco> In the initial part of your paper you mention the fact that (quote): "the main focus of the extensive [?] debate has been on cultural change rather than the relationship between power and taste" (p. 2-3). Can you explain this aspect?

<Warde Alan> My reading of the recent literature is that there has been a great deal of interest in issues of personal identity, and the way that people use new (and old) cultural products and practices to display identity but with much less attention to the sort of questions that were being asked by Bourdieu in Distinction where the issue was much about how culture served political power.

<Arlotti Marco> Are there ideological reasons?

<Warde Alan> I don't quite understand, can you say more?

< Arlotti Marco> It's only a general consideration about the concept of power. It is not so strong considered in the general literature.

<Warde Alan> I probably agree. Bourdieu's great contribution was to connect culture to power in a distinctive way - to show that it played a big role in domination. That seemed to me to get rather lost and I wanted to ask explicitly about it. Clearly both the structure of social and political power has changed; and so have the boundaries and classifications of cultural products. Both things are changing at the same time. Perhaps more attention was paid to the blurring and changing of cultural boundaries, and less to its social consequences. Of course this was part of a changing political culture more generally.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Let's give some space to Chiara Rabbiosi.

<Question from Rabbiosi Chiara> An unexpected question both for prof. Warde and Torrisi, I hadn't planned it before, but I have been struck by the way Giovanni called (in)famous the work of Bourdieu. So, I'd like to discuss with all the participant about what  each of us consider positive sides/negative sides of Bourdieu work.

<Warde Alan> Chiara, We could be here all day! I am inspired by Bourdieu's general approach to sociological analysis and understanding, but find much of the substance of his analysis problematic on a general canvass, and find his concepts slippery, often imprecise, and in need of clarification and elaboration. So for me, the general orientation is fine, the specifics problematic.

<Rabbiosi Chiara> Ok, I was simply curious about opinions in few lines by students from different academic backgrounds!

<Torrisi Giovanni> I tend to agree with prof. Warde about Bourdieu. If there is interest, we can dedicate another meeting just to it. For the time being I think it would be better to go on with the other questions...

<Rabbiosi Chiara> Ok

<Torrisi Giovanni> I just anticipate that I have as well two questions from Federica Davolio that could not join us today. Let me give some space to them, before passing to the others...

<From Federica Davolio> Good afternoon to you all. I'm very pleased to (asynchronously) meet you, prof. Warde. I briefly introduce myself. I'm a PhD student at the University of Milan and I'm working on the Slow Food movement, on the bundle it is developing between heritage industry and political consumerism. My first question is a methodological one. Do you think network analysis can provide useful insights into the study of taste dynamics? I'm especially thinking about the link between omnivorousness and variety of networks in which people display their tastes... avoiding a simplistic structuralism, of course.
I'm particularly interested in the ethicization of consumption as a form of social distinction (through fair trade buying, e.g., or through the boycott of some products...). You briefly touch this point in you paper, but I'm very interested in your opinion on this issue... could you please detail it?

<Warde Alan> An interesting and difficult question. I would also look at the Slow Food Movement as part heritage, part consumerism. I could imagine an interesting study of the social networks of the members of the movement. You hint that those with an omnivorous orientation are likely to have broader networks than other. I would hypothesis that you are correct. Partly because the likely participants are middle class, and the middle class both have larger networks and a greater propensity to try 'everything', as Baudrillard put it.
I would not necessarily want to say that ethical consumption is, per se, a way of claiming distinction. Though, to the extent that aesthetic disagreements and disputes tend to be within classes rather than across them, there may well be some sense in which the different fractions for he middle class may use ethical claims - having a sense of superiority on the basis of ethical behavior - as a way to mark boundaries within the middle class. There could well be some evidence for this in the UK, though I haven't it to hand.

<Torrisi Giovanni> It would have been interesting to have Federica reply... but let's move on to next Tatiana's question.

<Question from Sauris Tatiana> Did you make research comparing between visible signs (kind of car, cultural way of entertainment, kind of dresses...)  and what interviewed people, belonging to different classes, said about taste?

<Warde Alan> We did not examine the same questions. It would have been interesting to ask more about people's possessions. Cars for example. But we had a time-limited survey (60 minutes) and had to choose among topics. We did ask about people preferred ways of dressing - in a question very like that of Bourdieu, and we talked in interviews about clothing and presentation. The majority of Britons like either casual or comfortable clothes. Not apparently a major avenue of distinction in Britain. Their understandings were interesting. The higher the social class, the more they differentiated between the different situations in which different types of clothes should be worn. And there were significant differences between men and women - probably not surprising. Many men showed very little interest in talking about such things. The language was not then, in relation to clothes, much about taste. Indeed 'taste' was not a word that came up spontaneously very easily in discussion.

<Torrisi Giovanni> As before, Tatiana may comment on professor's Warde answer.

<Sauris Tatiana> For me it's ok, thanks!

<Warde Alan> P.s. Clothes. There are work clothes, official occasion clothes (e.g funerals) and my clothes (those which express my personal taste); these are categories that almost everyone uses.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Next one:

<Question from Catena Leonardo> Can we make a comparison between Bourdieu's theory and Veblen's theory? How today is possible to use taste to hold power position?

<Warde Alan> Bourdieu probably owed rather more to Veblen than he was prepared to admit. You will probably remember the passage where he says he is doing something completely different. Of course the political and historical situation was very different. And Bourdieu was certainly talking about other things besides conspicuous consumption. Orientations to cultural consumption are very important - the mode of appropriation of items; and this Bourdieu knew well. Recent work has tended to play down conspicuous consumption of things, of products, to concentrate on other topics. Perhaps this was not entirely advisable. There are still things to learn from Veblen. The relationship between taste and position is however now very much more complex. There is probably no simple expression of the relationship between taste and power. That was one of the implications of the paper in Sociologica. The subtleties of the process are, however, worth teasing out. Omnivorous orientation is one expression of middle class position in the UK, and it serves the middle class well, I think. What strikes me about the current situation is that the middle class do not, and do not need, to assert that their forms of culture are superior to others; or that their form of culture makes them superior to other classes. There is not much that suggests condescension by the middle class towards working class tastes. Indeed the middle and the working class share many tastes; all is not distinction.
But the focus group material certainly leaves many hints that not all is well. There are plenty of hints of the working class being uncomfortable and there are glimmers of resentment. The working class focus groups certain used a language of 'them and 'us'. But still it is more the case that they seem detached from legitimate culture than that they object to it.

<Torrisi Giovanni> I see that we have new comers.... you are welcome to post your questions as well. Meanwhile Leonardo can comment on lesson.

<Catena Leonardo> Ok thanks you for the answers

<Question from Rabbiosi Chiara> I think that what’s most fascinating in studying consumption today is the many ambivalences hidden in it (democracy on one side, power boundaries on others) as you well illustrated. But the way these ambivalences are so fuzzy makes me feel that I am without the right instruments to catch it. Sorry for being boring.. but I'd like you to  stay a bit longer on the reasons that motivated the choice corresponding to any of the method you adopted in your research?

<Warde Alan> The 'right' instruments are probably many instruments. Our choice of method was partly determined by the desire to replicate in part Bourdieu's Distinction. It was partly informed by a strong appreciation of the limits of survey analysis; and the team has expertise and confidence in qualitative methods. Studying the ambivalence of consumption behavior more widely I would recommend network analysis, as mentioned above, and implied in the answer about social capital. I also think that we need much better honed institutional analysis. My research on other projects which compare European countries indicate to me that there are very many important differences which are the product of institutional path development. The is no consumer; and no theory of the consumer, you might say. Rather consumption occurs in conditions of interdependence, and is situationally specific. There is therefore room for ethnographic and symbolic interactionist modes of approach. I am also convinced that practice theory - which Bourdieu espouses but doesn't use so much - is a way to understand the normality, or ordinariness of much consumption. That suggests other methods, of observation, but also of examining texts which tell people how to behave.
This answer is too long; I recommend many methods and hope that they can be targeted to appropriate research questions.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Chiara the floor is yours for a reply.

<Rabbiosi Chiara> Thank you ever. I just wondered if there where different hypothesis for each method your team used. Or better, which those where. But I understood your answer.

<Warde Alan> I think we hoped that several methods would produce a more rounded picture. We have compared the findings of different methods. Sometimes we found that the interviews with people who had answered the survey produced answers that were very different. They had changed their minds, perhaps.
Or their answer had been mis-coded - which always happens a bit. Or that they had some particular circumstances which meant that the most obvious interpretation of the survey result was inappropriate. An example was someone who had recently become ill, who had done things before becoming ill, but whose behavior was now rather different. We also found, however, by interviewing people who had answered the survey and then locating them in cultural space, that people with similar social characteristics did tend to share cultural preferences. So there is a broad core of similarity among groups, but with lots of variance around the norm also.

<Question from Sauris Tatiana> Did you explore the role of advertising in influencing different social groups taste?

<Warde Alan> No.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Clear quick answer. I see that also Stefanie and Julia logged in while we were discussing... do you have any question to prof. Warde?

<Strutz Julia> No thank you very much. I enjoy following the lesson.

<Torrisi Giovanni> Very well. If there are not other question I would like to thank you all for assisting this meeting with the author and prof. Warde for the competence and patience showed in answering our questions... I hope to see you all at the next appointment. I'll contact about it by email as always.

<Kazepov Yuri> Dear Alan, many thanks also from my part, I will send you a slightly polished transcription of the interaction for your eventual corrections. All the best and thanks again also in the name of the Journal Sociologica.

<Warde Alan> Thank you all for your questions and interest.

<Kazepov Yuri> Bye to everybody and keep in touch for the next event with probably Gary Fine. You'll get more detailed information in due time by e-mail.