Response: Not So Fast: A Comment on Atkinson and Deeming's ‘Class and Cuisine in Contemporary Britain: The Social Space, the Space of Food and their Homology’

Abstract

In a recent paper in The Sociological Review, Atkinson and Deeming argue that tastes in food are homologous to the social space, exactly as it was in Bourdieu's Distinction. This would involve differences in food tastes not only along the class hierarchy, but also a clear-cut divide by the relative weight of cultural and economic capital. However, Atkinson and Deeming base their claims on insufficient data analysis: They misinterpret their own correspondence analysis and the additional tables, which they in turn fail to subject to even the most basic statistical analysis. We show that the results they present are actually at odds with their own interpretations and main conclusions. It is not just that Atkinson and Deeming's arguments lack support; their proposition about a culinary division between cultural and economic class fractions is contradicted by their own data.In a recent paper in The Sociological Review, Atkinson and Deeming (A&D) make the claim that there is a homology between the structures in social space and the structures in space of food in Britain (Atkinson and Deeming, 2015). The paper represents a further step in Atkinson's ongoing attempt at promoting a specific 'Bourdieusian' approach to class analysis. According to A&D's argument, the principal divisions in the social space of positions should thus also be evident in tastes in food. According to this reasoning, Britons' tastes in food should be differentiated not only by the general stratification hierarchy -what Pierre Bourdieu referred to as volume of capital -but also by the cross-cutting, relative weight of cultural and economic capital -or the principle of capital composition. We recognize the importance of the research question, and agree with A&D that an investigation of these issues is called for. But after reading their highly ambitious article, we find it necessary to

Structure and Historicity of Cultural Tastes. Uses of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Sociological Theory on Age: The Case of Music and Movies

“…Evidently, this ‘structural homology’ replaces a minimal and descriptive reading of Axis 1 by (arguably) a ‘homology’ based on level of education. This comment appears to echo that of Flemmen and Hejlbrekke (2016) on the analysis of British tastes in food by Atkinson and Deeming (2015). They argue that throughout Atkinson and Deeming’s analysis there is no evidence to support the ‘homology thesis’, especially ‘the composition of capital’ as a second axis of structuration (Flemmen and Hjellbrekke, 2016: 192).…”

Politics and the professions in a time of crisis

“…In other words, the present study offers insights into how politically progressive or conservative the UK professional class is and what such attitudes are most closely associated with in terms of cultural and economic capital.MethodologyCharlwood et al (2014) note that British sociology tends to be dominated by qualitative approaches. This is certainly true of Bourdieusian studies on class (see, for example,Atkinson, 2010Atkinson, , 2012Randle et al, 2014;O'Mahoney, 2007, Simpson et al, 2014Riach and Cutcher, 2014) with a few exceptions(Atkinson and Deeming, 2015;Flemmen and Hjellbrekke, 2016 and see the CCSE and BBC surveys above). The dominance of qualitative approaches is especially…”