Researching Arts and Culture: An Intellectual Journey Dr Marta Herrero University of Plymouth UK

Sociology, arts and culture  METHODOLOGIES  Legitimacy within the discipline of sociology  Impact and relationship to theories  Personal/Intellectual journey  Developing a research agenda: arts and culture…a journey

Art: Uncomfortable??

The journey begins… relationship with theories  APPLYING THEORIES, CONCEPTS  Museums and art collections  Modern art collecting in Ireland, Dublin  Cultural value of art

Disciplinary legitimacy: the arts PhD upgrade

Irish Museum of Modern Art  LEGITIMATING RESEARCH  Pierre Bourdieu  CAPITALS: FORMATION  Study of cultural fields: Museums: ‘Modern art’  Collecting policies  Display practices

Methods  Interviews: curators, museum directors, civil servants, board members  Analysis of exhbition displays  Historical background: archival research

Theories: Pierre Bourdieu  The social construction of art values  The market for symbolic goods  Social actors, capitals and cultural fields  Art object: cultural and symbolic capital  Social actors: cultural, economic, symbolic capitals

Challenge The arts economy: art market

Which theories, concepts…  Sociology of the arts + Sociology of Economy  Economic sociology: a sociological approach to the arts economy?  Cultural sociology: conceptualise culture?  ‘Market’ as a concept?

Shaping up a research agenda: ‘A toolbox...’

Art market: Dublin-London  Economic, instrumental value: profit  Nationality, cultural value: tastes, preferences of buyers and vendors  Selling in London: helping differentiate ‘Irish art’ vs. ‘British art’  Selling in Dublin: patriotism, keeping art within national boundaries  Similarities  ‘Irish art’ repository of national value  Cultural Sociology, 2011

Social Studies of Finance and Markets  Actor network theory  Challenge ‘the social’: actor networks  Network interactions: humans, technological devices, institutions  The ‘economy’  ‘Calculation tools’

Making the arts economy  Art value creation and calculation tools: the art catalogue  Bourdieu: cultural, symbolic capital  Adding to human agency: objects  Catalogue as a work of art: aesthetics  Journal of Cultural Economy, 2010

Performing calculation in the art market  THE CULTURAL: actors- technologies  Reassessing Bourdieu: capital creation as calculation  Artworks: passive, acted upon by human agents  Site of meaning production: actors, and market devices(instruments, technologies) catalogues, exhibition media, frames…

Renewal: setting up agendas Culture, markets and emotions Artistic markets/non artistic markets

Emotions and the arts economy

Researching emotions... Emotions and Rituals  Randal Collins  Group rituals  Body presence and collective symbol  Emotional energy

Emotions and rituals in the art market  AIMS  Emotions as a feature of economic behaviour  Centrality of the art object  Role of art institutions: increasing/decreasing emotional energy  Type of art for sale  Thesis Eleven, 2010

Rituals, emotions and art  RECYCLING DATA  Art as a cultural + emotional object  Repository of emotions  Mediates emotions of buyers  Moulin (1967) The French Art Market, art collecting as a passion …  Advantages:  Centrality of the art object  More encompassing view of market behavior

Centrality of emotions in markets: challenges  Economic behaviour: prominence of economics  Initial reaction to my research! Positive and negative  How to research emotions? How to distinguish emotions from self-interested behaviour?  Its all self-interested behaviour  Influence of economic paradigms,

Arts, Culture and Sociology: challenges  LEGITIMACY: Centrality of arts to sociology, and to economic processes  SETTING RESEARCH AGENDAS  Developing, advancing existing theories  Challenges: Opening up inter-disciplinarity: a dialogue sociology & economics+ emotions?  REVISIONING METHODS: Formulating questions, accessing interviewees, confidentiality...  ADVANTAGES: Pushing the boundaries of sociological research to incorporate and combine previously unexplored subject areas