Page 120 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

Enthusing 111

An important way in which fan studies have sought to consider the
social is via the work on Bourdieu.

Bourdieu and fandom
As Hills and Sandvoss show, Bourdieu’s work on distinction and capitals has
been influential on studies of fandom and in aspects of contemporary work on
youth subcultures. However, Hills argues in suggestive ways that this work has
been limited in at least two ways. First, Bourdieu has a particular understand-
ing of cultural capital, as legitimated education and knowledge of fine art and
so on that has to be expanded and rethought in the context of the modes of
cultural capital that are significant for fans. While the literature on fandom has
done this, it still shows the effects of this sort of Bourdieu emphasis. In particu-
lar, and in a second related fashion, this literature has tended relatively to
neglect social capital, as Bourdieu tends also to do. He also argues that the
‘calculative’ model proposed by Bourdieu has difficulty in explaining why
people become involved in fandom at all.
This line of argument has much in common with that used by Devine
(2004) in the work on education discussed in Chapter 7 and more general
critique by Sayer (2005) considered in Chapter 6. Thus, Devine also rejects
instrumentalist accounts to show how it is the interaction of capitals (and the
fact that this does not guarantee successful outcomes) that are important. Hills,
therefore, can be read as offering an argument that shows that the interaction
between capitals is pertinent and that this discussion has also to be linked to
wider considerations of motivations and identity. This therefore requires
sociological and psychological (or psychoanalytical) dimensions as I have
argued throughout this chapter so far.
An important part of Bourdieu’s work that has also been taken into fan
studies is the idea of distinction. On one level, fan activities can be interpreted
as involving distinction in a fairly orthodox sense, thus using the work of
Thomas (2002) on Inspector Morse and The Archers as one example, Sandvoss
is able to argue that: ‘There is substantial evidence in support of an under-
standing of fan tastes as yet another segment of the process of distinction
through consumption, in line with an orthodox reading of Bourdieu’s analysis
in studies which have correlated the choice of the object of fandom to fans’
class position’ (2005: 35). However, in addition to such class differences other
lines of cleavage appear in fandom that mean that Bourdieu’s account requires
refinement. This has involved continuing and renewed attention to distinc-
tion and hierarchies within fandom and a number of studies have now
deployed such an approach, which reinforces the need to consider the inter-
connections between different forms of capital. It also shows how these
debates require connection to issues of identity.

Space, place and fandom
I will explore this issue in further detail in the next section of this chapter via
some important work by Couldry; however, Sandvoss (2005) clearly illustrates
the way in which space and place interact in fan processes. Thus, in one