Jennifer Smith Maguire

LEISURE AND THE OBLIGATION OF SELF-WORK: An Examination of the Fitness Field

Abstract This article examines the cultural field of fitness as a network of producers, consumers, products and practices that has developed around the care of the body through physical exercise. Drawing on a thematic text analysis of US exercise manuals, the paper focuses on how the commercial fitness field naturalizes associations between physical exercise and leisure, and between leisure and self‐work. In particular, the analysis examines three themes and their relevance to our broader understanding of leisure in contemporary consumer society: the management of leisure time; the use of leisure for self‐investment strategies; and the promotion of consumption as the framework for leisure and an accompanying notion of pleasure. The fitness field casts light on how leisure more generally is constructed as a sphere of obligations to make productive use of one’s time, to improve one’s body and self, and to do so through the wares of the consumer marketplace. The cultural imaginary of leisure as a time of freedom from work and responsibility is thus recast, in an age of individualization, as a time of freedom to accomplish the work of self‐production.

Are we all cultural intermediaries now? An introduction to cultural intermediaries in context

The term ‘cultural intermediaries’ is good to think with: it has been a productive device for examining the producers of symbolic value in various industries, commodity chains and urban spaces, highlighting such issues as the blurring of work and leisure, the conservatism of ‘new’ and ‘creative’ work, and the material practices involved in the promotion of consumption (e.g. Bovone, 2005; Entwistle, 2006; McFall, 2004; Moor, 2008; Negus, 2002; Nixon and Crewe, 2004; Smith Maguire, 2008; Wright, 2005). In addition, cultural intermediary research offers an important complement to the study of cultural production, within which questions of agency are typically focused on consumers, and questions of power on institutions. The concept of cultural intermediaries usefully prioritizes issues of agency, negotiation and power, moving the everyday, contested practices of market agents to the fore for the study of the production of culture (Garnham, 2005; Havens et al., 2009; Smith Maguire and Matthews, 2010). Generally, research on cultural intermediaries has followed two different (although not incompatible) directions: cultural intermediaries as exemplars of the new middle class, involved in the mediation of production and consumption (following e.g. Bourdieu, 1984, 1996); and cultural intermediaries as market actors involved in the qualification of goods, mediating between economy and culture (following developments in actornetwork theory and new economic sociology, e.g. Callon et al., 2002; Muniesa et al., 2007). Engagements within and between these streams of work have resulted in conceptual developments: for example, du Gay’s (2004) discussion of devices and dispositions, and Cronin’s (2004) elaboration of multiple regimes of mediation. Nevertheless,

The personal is professional Personal trainers as a case study of cultural intermediaries

The article examines the discursive construction of personal training as a case study of the characteristics of cultural intermediary work. Based on an analysis of US personal training occupational texts from 1990 to 2000, the article employs a cultural economy perspective (du Gay and Pryke, 2002) to examine the importance of normative codes of professionalism, the investment of personal resources and aesthetic labour, and the tension between cultural and economic categories in representations of the work. Personal training is a particularly revealing case because of its explicit tensions between cultural factors (e.g. a professional, service-oriented ethic) and economic parameters (e.g. the entrepreneurial aspects of selling services). In response, trainers are encouraged to adopt a vocational attitude, suggesting how cultural intermediary work more generally invokes particular dispositions, which are the outcomes of negotiating between economy and culture, and the personal and the professional, in speci...The article examines the discursive construction of personal training as a case study of the characteristics of cultural intermediary work. Based on an analysis of US personal training occupational texts from 1990 to 2000, the article employs a cultural economy perspective (du Gay and Pryke, 2002) to examine the importance of normative codes of professionalism, the investment of personal resources and aesthetic labour, and the tension between cultural and economic categories in representations of the work. Personal training is a particularly revealing case because of its explicit tensions between cultural factors (e.g. a professional, service-oriented ethic) and economic parameters (e.g. the entrepreneurial aspects of selling services). In response, trainers are encouraged to adopt a vocational attitude, suggesting how cultural intermediary work more generally invokes particular dispositions, which are the outcomes of negotiating between economy and culture, and the personal and the professional, in specific occupational contexts.

Provenance and the liminality of production and consumption: The case of wine promoters

Cultural intermediaries actively mediate between production and consumption: they operate at the interfaces between and within firms, and between firms and customers, and reflexively negotiate between their roles as symbolic producers and taste-leading consumers. The article examines the liminality of cultural intermediaries through a case study of wine promoters, using the theme of provenance as an empirical lens through which to examine both their work in creating added value for particular wines, and their identities as reflexive producer/consumers. In its distinctive account of boundary work in practice, the article contributes to emerging research on the subjectivity of market practitioners — a crucial perspective on the relationship between production and consumption, but one which has yet to be fully developed in marketing theory and its discussions of value co-creation and the prosumer.Cultural intermediaries actively mediate between production and consumption: they operate at the interfaces between and within firms, and between firms and customers, and reflexively negotiate between their roles as symbolic producers and taste-leading consumers. The article examines the liminality of cultural intermediaries through a case study of wine promoters, using the theme of provenance as an empirical lens through which to examine both their work in creating added value for particular wines, and their identities as reflexive producer/consumers. In its distinctive account of boundary work in practice, the article contributes to emerging research on the subjectivity of market practitioners — a crucial perspective on the relationship between production and consumption, but one which has yet to be fully developed in marketing theory and its discussions of value co-creation and the prosumer.

Looking good Consumption and the problems of self-production

This article considers the anxieties and risks that attend the process of self-production in the context of consumption. Drawing from interviews with a small sample of British young adults — white, middle-class, university-educated — the article examines how material practices and discursive strategies resonate with theoretical accounts of the nexus of consumption, identity and individualization. The analysis highlights how respondents discursively cope with anxieties and risks associated with the question of style, the problem of conformity, the desire for confidence and the negotiation of gender. In doing so, the article indicates ways in which the process of self-production in contemporary consumer societies may be less reflexive, and more socially conservative, than some accounts of individualization would suggest.

Familiness as a form of value for wineries: a preliminary account

Based on a small, exploratory study of three family-owned wineries in Victoria, Australia, the article examines how ‘familiness’ is constructed as a form of value. Drawing on work in cultural economy and economic sociology, we propose that familiness can be best understood as the outcome of a process of qualification that mediates between a winerys actual repertoire of properties and its cultural reception through the selective framing and legitimizing of family-related product properties as worthy points of attachment. There were five major themes around which the notion of family was clustered in the narratives of winery representatives and in winery marketing material: family as a key dimension of marketing strategy; the day-to-day involvement of family; the winerys family heritage; family as a symbolic quality; and the brand as family. Based on these findings, we argue that familiness may involve both indexical and iconic cues, that the material family is only one element in the construction of familiness as a form of value, and that familiness is legitimized as a point of attachment for consumers and employees through reference to authenticity, among other discourses.

Lafite in China : media representations of ‘wine culture’ in new markets

Increased economic power has positioned China within the global elite, yet China’s legitimacy remains low with regard to hierarchies of taste. Drawing from Bourdieu and Elias, this article offers an account of the global dynamics of status contests, and the role played by cultural capital and notions of civility and vulgarity. Specifically, we examine how U.S., UK, and Chinese media represent Chinese consumption of fine wine, and particularly that of Château Lafite, in the 2000 to 2013 period. Our analysis reveals four major ways in which Chinese fine wine consumption is framed—as vulgar, popular, functional, and discerning—and highlights tensions between Western and Chinese terms of cultural legitimacy. The research uncovers nuanced dimensions to the “East/West” divide in terms of the grades of cultural capital, competing logics of valuation, and modes of civility at play. Macromarketing implications of fine wine consumption in a fragmented and complex market are discussed.

Provenance as a filtering and framing device in the qualification of wine

This research examines how provenance – where a product was produced, by whom, how and when – features in the work of cultural intermediaries in the Australian premium wine market, at two different stages in the career of a wine. First, evaluations of provenance attributes (in terms of sincerity, tradition and transparency) serve as filters through which wine promoters identify market-worthy wines; second, those attributes are strategically deployed to frame the wine as a worthy choice for consumers (focusing on the use of the winemaker as a framing device). The article offers a distinctive account of the qualification of wine, and makes the case for a cultural economic conceptualization of provenance as a negotiated, accomplished quality. In foregrounding wine promoters’ emotional attachments to provenance attributes of wines they choose to promote, the research highlights the affective dimensions of markets, which are made, in part, through the consuming passions of cultural intermediaries.This research examines how provenance – where a product was produced, by whom, how and when – features in the work of cultural intermediaries in the Australian premium wine market, at two different stages in the career of a wine. First, evaluations of provenance attributes (in terms of sincerity, tradition and transparency) serve as filters through which wine promoters identify market-worthy wines; second, those attributes are strategically deployed to frame the wine as a worthy choice for consumers (focusing on the use of the winemaker as a framing device). The article offers a distinctive account of the qualification of wine, and makes the case for a cultural economic conceptualization of provenance as a negotiated, accomplished quality. In foregrounding wine promoters’ emotional attachments to provenance attributes of wines they choose to promote, the research highlights the affective dimensions of markets, which are made, in part, through the consuming passions of cultural intermediaries.

Introduction: Looking at Food Practices and Taste across the Class Divide

Abstract This editorial introduces a Special Issue on food practices and social inequality by outlining a dichotomous tendency in policy-related, academic and populist accounts of the relationship between food and class. The Special Issue aims to move our understanding beyond this dichotomous divide, which privileges either middle-class discerning taste or working-class necessity in understandings of the determinants of food practices. The papers call attention to the diverse, complex forms of critical creativity and cultural capital employed by individuals, families and communities across the spectrum of social stratification, in their attempts to acquire and prepare food that is both healthy and desirable. The papers report on research carried out in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Denmark, and cover diverse contexts, from the intense insecurity of food deserts to the relative security of social democratic states. Through quantitative and qualitative cross-class comparisons, and ethnographic accounts of low-income experiences and practices, the papers examine the ways in which food practices and preferences are inflected by social class (alone, and in combination with gender, ethnicity and urban/rural location). Thus, the Special Issue offers a debunking of the figure of the uncritical, uncultured low-income consumer. Calling for the development of a more nuanced, dynamic account of the tastes and cultural competences of socially disadvantaged groups, the editorial concludes by underlining the simultaneous need for structural critiques of the gross inequalities in the degrees of freedom with which different individuals and groups engage in food practices.AbstractThis editorial introduces a Special Issue on food practices and social inequality by outlining a dichotomous tendency in policy-related, academic and populist accounts of the relationship between food and class. The Special Issue aims to move our understanding beyond this dichotomous divide, which privileges either middle-class discerning taste or working-class necessity in understandings of the determinants of food practices. The papers call attention to the diverse, complex forms of critical creativity and cultural capital employed by individuals, families and communities across the spectrum of social stratification, in their attempts to acquire and prepare food that is both healthy and desirable. The papers report on research carried out in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Denmark, and cover diverse contexts, from the intense insecurity of food deserts to the relative security of social democratic states. Through quantitative and qualitative cross-class comparisons, and ethnographic accoun...

The taste for the particular: A logic of discernment in an age of omnivorousness

This article provides an analysis of two leading specialist wine magazines, Decanter and Wine Spectator, and the codification and legitimation of a ‘taste for the particular’. Such media of connois...This article provides an analysis of two leading specialist wine magazines, Decanter and Wine Spectator, and the codification and legitimation of a ‘taste for the particular’. Such media of connoisseurship are key institutions of evaluation and legitimation in an age of omnivorousness, but are often overlooked in research that foregrounds the agency of tasters and neglects the conventionalization of tasting norms and devices. The wine field has undergone a process of democratization typical of omnivorousness more broadly: former elite/low boundaries (operationalized in the article through the Old/New World dichotomy) are ignored, and a discerning attitude is encouraged for wines from a diversity of regions. Drawing on the magazines’ audience profile and market position data, and a content analysis of advertising and editorial content from 2008 and 2010, I examine the differences in the use of four legitimation frames (transparency, heritage, genuineness and external validation) for the provenance elements of Old and New World wines. The analysis suggests that the Old World – typically French – notion of terroir, on which the traditional Old/New World boundary rested, has been democratized through the particularities of provenance. Yet, the analysis also reveals continuing differences between the two categories (including greater emphasis on the heritage and external validation of Old World context of production, and on the transparency and genuineness of New World producers), and the preservation of established hierarchies of taste through the application of terroir to New World wines, which retain the Old World and France as their master referent.