Researching Arts and Culture:

An Intellectual JourneyDr Marta Herrero

University of Plymouth UK

Sociology, arts and culture METHODOLOGIES

Legitimacy within the discipline of sociology

Impact and relationship to theories

Personal/Intellectual journey

Developing a research agenda: arts and culture…a journey

Art: Uncomfortable??

The journey begins…relationship with

theories APPLYING THEORIES,

CONCEPTS

Museums and art collections

Modern art collecting in Ireland, Dublin

Cultural value of art

Disciplinary legitimacy: the arts

PhD upgrade

Irish Museum of Modern Art

LEGITIMATING RESEARCH

Pierre Bourdieu

CAPITALS: FORMATION

Study of cultural fields: Museums: ‘Modern art’

Collecting policies

Display practices

Methods

Interviews: curators, museum directors, civil servants, board members

Analysis of exhbition displays

Historical background: archival research

Theories: Pierre Bourdieu

The social construction of art values

The market for symbolic goods

Social actors, capitals and cultural fields

Art object: cultural and symbolic capital

Social actors: cultural, economic, symbolic capitals

Challenge The arts economy: art market

Which theories, concepts…

Sociology of the arts + Sociology of Economy

Economic sociology: a sociological approach to the arts economy?

Cultural sociology: conceptualise culture?

‘Market’ as a concept?

Shaping up a research agenda:

‘A toolbox...’

Art market: Dublin-London

Economic, instrumental value: profit

Nationality, cultural value: tastes, preferences of buyers and vendors

Selling in London: helping differentiate ‘Irish art’ vs. ‘British art’

Selling in Dublin: patriotism, keeping art within national boundaries

Similarities

‘Irish art’ repository of national value

Cultural Sociology, 2011

Social Studies of Finance

and Markets Actor network theory

Challenge ‘the social’:

actor networks

Network interactions: humans, technological devices, institutions

The ‘economy’

‘Calculation tools’

Making the arts economy

Art value creation and calculation tools: the art catalogue

Bourdieu: cultural, symbolic capital

Adding to human agency: objects

Catalogue as a work of art: aesthetics

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2010

Performing calculation in the art market

THE CULTURAL: actors-technologies

Reassessing Bourdieu: capital creation as calculation

Artworks: passive, acted upon by human agents

Site of meaning production: actors, and market devices(instruments, technologies) catalogues, exhibition media, frames…

Renewal: setting up agendasCulture, markets and emotions

Artistic markets/non artistic markets

Emotions and the arts economy

Researching emotions...

Emotions and Rituals

Randal Collins

Group rituals

Body presence and collective symbol

Emotional energy

Emotions and rituals in the art market

AIMS

Emotions as a feature of economic behaviour

Centrality of the art object

Role of art institutions: increasing/decreasing emotional energy

Type of art for sale

Thesis Eleven, 2010

Rituals, emotions and art

RECYCLING DATA

Art as a cultural + emotional object

Repository of emotions

Mediates emotions of buyers

Moulin (1967) The French Art Market, art collecting as a passion …

Advantages:

Centrality of the art object

More encompassing view of market behavior

Centrality of emotions in markets: challenges Economic behaviour: prominence of economics

Initial reaction to my research! Positive and negative

How to research emotions? How to distinguish emotions from self-interested behaviour?

Its all self-interested behaviour

Influence of economic paradigms,

Arts, Culture and Sociology: challenges

LEGITIMACY: Centrality of arts to sociology, and to economic processes

SETTING RESEARCH AGENDAS

Developing, advancing existing theories

Challenges: Opening up inter-disciplinarity: a dialogue sociology & economics+ emotions?

REVISIONING METHODS: Formulating questions, accessing interviewees, confidentiality...

ADVANTAGES: Pushing the boundaries of sociological research to incorporate and combine previously unexplored subject areas