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174 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

and power relations. Formal organizations ‘field of cultural production’ despite similar-
may provide either an arena for conflict and ities in their names (Peterson, 1976). It is
competition among agents vying for position rooted in American empiricism and main-
in an artistic field or a milieu for collabora- tains that the symbolic content of culture is
tion (DiMaggio, 1986; Marontate, 2005). shaped by the context in which it is produced
Paul DiMaggio (1992) studied how the use of and disseminated. The perspective encour-
not-for-profit organizational models in theatre, ages systematic observation. For example,
opera and the dance in the United States Peterson observed that collaboration among
promoted institutional change and trans- music promoters, musicians and fans was
formed status hierarchies, creating new crucial for the invention of conventions that
elites. Although the high culture model is came to define country music, but competi-
associated with elite tastes and learned cul- tion and conflicts were factors in change and
ture, it is also used in research about the per- innovation (Peterson, 1997). His work has
sistence of inequalities and the failure of been influential on research about the interplay
democratization efforts to erase class bound- of the arts, media and informally-produced
aries. Elite participants in arts organizations culture enhancing understanding of artistic
have sometimes tried to balance prestige with ‘scenes’ as social phenomena (Alexander,
diversity and accessibility (Ostrower, 2002). 2003; DiMaggio, 2000; Dowd, 2002).
In research on the social production (and Other recent research is founded on quite
reproduction) of culture Pierre Bourdieu different ontological and epistemological
developed core concepts associated with the assumptions. Sociological approaches to the
high culture model that are now used by many study of aesthetic phenomena as singularities
sociologists of the arts (sometimes rather have been developed in connection with
indiscriminately), among them, cultural capi- research on the working lives of arts pro-
tal, habitus and the notion of the creation of fessionals (Heinich, 1993, 1998b, 1998c;
belief in the value of symbolic goods Marontate, 2001). The very notion of ‘career’in
(Bourdieu, 1984, 1993, 1996; Bourdieu et al., the arts is marked by tensions between the idea
1991/1969). His work on taste as class-based that career profiles develop in a predictable
predilections and a process distinction met pattern with routine stages and systems of
with opposition from some sociologists. artistic recognition premised on originality and
For example, Antoine Hennion (2001) rejects unique practices that distinguish new art from
the idea of ‘objective’ distance and insists on non-art and avant-garde artists from their pred-
understanding the meaning-making practices ecessors (Heinich, 1998c). The need to be rec-
of people involved with the arts in a version ognized as singular has became a pattern in
of actor-network theory applied to the study contemporary artistic careers.
of taste as a reflexive performative mediation Pierre-Michel Menger (1989, 1999) pro-
practice. Hennion proposes that a sort of posed that artists develop careers through
collaboration occurs between artworks and a series of strategic choices and a succession
art-lovers (who he calls ‘amateurs’) in a of jobs. Work may be difficult to distinguish
co-production of aesthetic experience and from training opportunities. Menger observed
aesthetic object. that performing artists confront the precari-
ousness of the demand for their services by
developing strategies for rational diversifica-
The production of culture tion analogous to the sort of risk manage-
ment practiced by managers of investment
perspective and other new
portfolios. Rather than ‘putting all their eggs
approaches
in one basket’they develop networks of clients
Richard Peterson’s ‘production of culture per- and employers to maximize their chances of
spective’ has different origins than Bourdieu’s finding remuneration at any given moment.