Page 132 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

Conclusions 123

to use space here to emphasize some of the main points that I have sought to
establish through this consideration. Let me begin with the process of dis-
tinguishing. Through discussion of a variety of authors, I have drawn on a
post-Bourdieu type of analysis of social and cultural distinction. This is signifi-
cant, as I have suggested in a number of ways, but it is also limited, in two
main ways that I have considered in an interconnected fashion. First, there is a
danger that all social and cultural processes are seen as fundamentally con-
cerned with distinction or with distinguishing the status of one group from
another. Second, there is the issue that these processes are seen as tactics,
strategies or rational action towards a goal, when, in fact, they may be more
inchoate and diffuse (as are identities). A key aim, therefore, has been both to
argue that culture is not simply concerned with strategic or tactical distinction
as it moves in messy and complex ways that may indeed be intended and also
to imply that there are consequences on a number of fronts. I have used a
variety of studies to make these points. It is therefore important to stress that
while distinguishing cultures from others and thereby seeking social distinc-
tion is an important part of ordinary life, it always operates in contexts that
bring in other key processes, which are linked.
Another important process is that of belonging. In many respects
belonging is about reassurance that one feels comfortable in a social and
cultural situation. However, one of the potential problems with the idea of
belonging is that it (like the related idea of community) suggests a degree of
fixity. It has often been argued that in a rapidly changing, hypermodern or
globalizing world, such fixity is in decline. However, even if this is the case, it
can be argued that belonging is still very important as individuals strive for
some sense of fixing, but that therefore it needs to be conceptualized in revised
ways. It is in this context that I have deployed the concept of elective belong-
ing (Savage et al. 2005) in this book. The power of this concept is that it allows
for consideration of the mobility of belonging and opens a clear space for the
choices that people make. Moreover, while in much of our discussion of the
concept it is theorized through connection to place, that connection is also
through a range of social and cultural processes that display both distinction
and individuality, which are, in many ways, filtered and condensed through
place. However, other dimensions of belonging could represent different start-
ing points for the consideration of patterns of elective behaviour that have
alternative dimensions. Thus, for example, family life and choice of partner
can be seen to as part of elective belonging. Again I wish to emphasize the way
in which a critical part of elective belonging is the performing of identities and
the performing of social and cultural activity. As I have emphasized, this is a
process that is real and involves multiple audiences. Moreover, the process of
elective belonging in a hypermodern world increasingly involves connections
via media and connections that are influenced by the performance as if they
were mediatized as through the mass media. I have tried to further the study of
audience processes through these sorts of route in this book.
Other key processes that I have emphasized are those of individualizing
and identity. While the idea of identity has been much considered in recent
academic work, the relationship between the individual and the social has
been a continued theme of stress in sociology and cultural studies. I have not