Telling tales of participation: exploring the interplay of time and territory in cultural boundary work using participation narratives

Abstract

Consideration of the "stakes" attached to participation is most clearly associated with the debate around Bourdieu's [(1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge] concept of cultural capital and the role this plays in processes of domination and social closure. Yet, the preferred method of understanding practice variation in the cultural fieldthe analysis of cross-sectional survey data focused on established tastes and activities -reveals little of the broader nature, dynamics or significance of participation in people's daily lives. In this paper, I explore the potential of participation narratives for re-scoping the field of cultural participation. These accounts foreground the multiplicity of participation, its embeddedness in everyday concerns, institutions and relationships, and the interplay of time and space in the demarcation of the field by class and gender. As well as highlighting the limitations of theoretical models that focus on participation through the lens of cultural practices funded by the State, they suggest that articulations of cultural value in policy need to take more account of the personal histories, social relations and local contexts of participation.

Everyday participation and cultural value

“…Meanwhile, most recent accounts of cultural taste and consumption in Anglophone countries and Europe have been developed within, or with reference to, a Bourdieusian framework and as such fix on what Warde (2013) calls the "high culture system" and its commonly accepted transformation by the rise of the "cultural omnivore" (Peterson & Kern, 1996). While the notion of omnivorousness brings popular culture into view within this framing, the focus of attention remains on its role in the repertoire of elite cultural practices (see Miles, 2016).…”

The park and the commons: vernacular spaces for everyday participation and cultural value

“…It draws on qualitative research in the two wards of Cheetham, North Manchester and Broughton, East Salford, which involved two waves of household interviews (see Miles, 2016), three focus groups with young people and a period of ethnographic fieldwork (Edwards, 2015).…”

The mundane and insignificant, the ordinary and the extraordinary: Understanding Everyday Participation and theories of everyday life

“…The clue comes in the word "practice", indicating a theoretical approach that can also be a practical tool. A relatively new approach of understanding the social world, seemingly more "inclusive" and grounded in everyday processes, it represents a move away from analyses of the often spectacular and individualised "cultural" towards the ordinariness and often "collective" "competences" of the "practical", "material", and "embodied" everyday (see also Miles 2016). Warde (2014, p. 279) suggests that his work utilises "theories of practice as a lens to magnify aspects of common social processes which generate observable patterns of consumption".…”

“…Rather than assuming (as many do), that these days, people are selfish and uninterested in the well-being of their respective communities, it may be more useful, for instance, to make a close analysis of how the temporalities of particular kinds of work might impact on their ability to contribute (see also Miles, 2016).…”