Sociology of the Arts. Victoria D. Alexander

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Название Sociology of the Arts
Автор произведения Victoria D. Alexander
Жанр Социология
Серия
Издательство Социология
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781118323465



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as an important site for the distribution and consumption of art.

      Why do I consider broad categories of art—fine, popular, and folk/DIY—together? The full answer lies in the book, but the basic idea is that they all can be understood with the same sociological concepts. These analytic and methodological tools are applicable to arts that appear in some tangible or performative format (although they do not always apply well to related areas in popular culture, broadly stated, or the media, which is why these areas are not covered). Concentrating on the fine, popular, and folk arts makes it possible to cover the topic in some depth. Moreover, the distinctions among fine, popular, and folk art continue to exist, but they have blurred in recent decades and the categories are less powerful than they once were. In fact, these distinctions exist for social reasons, and this is an important topic for discussion.

       Terms for Art

      Other scholars have come to different solutions to the same problem. Griswold (2013: 11) uses the term cultural object, which she defines as “A shared significance embodied in form” – it is “audible, or visible, or tangible” or “can be articulated.” I will also use the terms “object” (as in artistic or cultural object) or “work” (as in artwork or work of art) to refer to individual pieces. I tend to use art, object, or work interchangeably. In general, I use these terms to refer to artistic endeavors that produce a product (a painting, a CD, a book, a film) as well as those that produce a performance (a ballet, live music).

      This book looks at sociological approaches to understanding the fine, popular, and folk arts, but what makes a sociological approach? Sociology embodies many ways of thinking about society. Sometimes these different thought styles are at odds with each other to such an extent that it may seem that they do not belong in the same discipline. Nevertheless, at least two ideas link the disparate approaches in sociology. First, sociology endeavors to generate theory. A theory is an attempt to say something about society, and most sociologists try to surpass “mere” description of the social world and attempt to theorize it, that is, to explain how it works.

      Second, sociology also looks at systems, structures, and culture; that is, at the connections among individuals, the stabilized patterns emerging from social interaction, and meaning that is shared across individuals. Sociology sees people as part of systems, structures, and cultures and sociologists concentrate on these rather than on the psychological makeup of particular persons or on the effects of “great men” and women who have single‐handedly made a difference.

      Sociologists do not agree, however, on whether researchers should discuss human action only at the level of individuals or whether researchers can look at aggregates of people and study how groups, organizations, or networks “act” (the issue of “macro–micro translation”). Sociologists also disagree on whether it is possible to separate elements of culture or social structures from the particular individuals who constitute them (the issue of “generalization”). Sociologists’ beliefs about these two issues are background assumptions (also called metatheories); researchers come to hold them independently of their research, as these beliefs cannot be confirmed or refuted through empirical study.

       Sociological Approaches

      In contrast, interpretive sociology is concerned with questions of meaning. How is meaning created and maintained in social systems? What is the relevance of people’s cultural background? What does a particular artwork mean? Most interpretivists believe that meaning cannot be abstracted from its particular situation and is, therefore, ungeneralizable. Sociology, in this view, is about understanding subjective experience and, theoretically, interpretivists are interested in explaining particular situations. Interpretive sociologists might study the meanings of art objects or how people create meaning in their lives through the consumption of art.

      There is a place in sociology for both positivistic and interpretive approaches, though some scholars from one camp look down on scholars from the other camp. Indeed, it is important to see sociology, as with all academic study, as a competition among theories and approaches. This book presents five basic approaches (reflection, shaping, production, consumption, and constitutive, as described in the subsequent chapters). Each of these approaches looks at art from a particular vantage point, but they do not map neatly onto a positivistic/interpretivist distinction, which cross‐cuts all of them. In some places, the different approaches may seem complementary, but in others, contradictory. This is the nature of academic work.

       Sociological Theories

      For the purposes of this book, theories are simplifying ideas or models that tell us about society. Metaphorically, a theory is a map of a territory (the social reality). If you wanted to get from London to Edinburgh, and you did not have SatNav in the car (or Google Maps on your phone), you might look up the best route on a paper road map. If the map were 800 miles long, like Great Britain itself, it would not fit into the car. This territory‐sized map would not be of much use. However, a map on a scale of 16 miles to the inch would fit on one large sheet that most people (or at least some people) could fold neatly and put into the