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: actorstechnologies

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