Keijo Rahkonen

Highbrow culture in Finland: Knowledge, taste and participation

This article explores the social distribution of involvement in highbrow culture in light of three issues being discussed in cultural sociology. One is that highbrow cultural orientation is an indicator of cultural capital or of social status. A second, the ‘meltdown scenario’, suggests that not only the popularity of highbrow activities, but also their distinctiveness, has decreased among younger cohorts in comparison to older cohorts. A third deals with the ‘feminization’ of highbrow culture. These issues are empirically addressed in contemporary Finland using nationally representative survey data. Highbrow culture is measured in three dimensions of cultural practices – knowledge, taste and participation – covering four different fields: music, literature, cinema and the visual arts. The results support all three arguments: First, education and occupational class are important social determinants of involvement in highbrow culture in Finland. Second, younger age cohorts show less interest in highbrow culture than do older Finns. Third, women tend to be more involved in highbrow culture than men. The results indicate considerable stability across the measures of highbrow culture and cultural fields. Social determinants of knowledge and cinema, however, are different from those in other dimensions and fields.

A Social and Economic Theory of Consumption

Foreword The Sociology of Consumption: A Brief History Markets and the Neo-Liberal Utopia of Omnipotent Markets Commodities and Consumption: General and Specific Features Want, Need and Commodity Consumption and the Necessary Economic Conditions for Consumption The Use and Meanings of Money Mechanisms of Consumption Choice and their General Cultural Framework Consumption as Ideological Discourse Consumption as Use: Our Relationship to Commodities

IT IS NOT A MATTER OF TASTE

ABSTRACT Upper classes and elites are usually exclusive circles which are hard to enter. In this paper we approach one such group using a focus group interview: a group from the Swedish-speaking upper class in officially bilingual Finland. Our paper addresses Bourdieus idea of distinction by cultural or taste distinctions. In comparison to some international studies on elites and upper classes, our group was surprisingly keen on expressing disgust towards other tastes and lifestyles and therefore other classes and/or social groups. One might be surprised at how efficiently distinction works in the Swedish-speaking old upper class and how politically incorrect its outspokenness about cultural superiority is. In this specific group, there is a double-distinction: not only are Finnish speakers looked down upon regardless of their class position, almost any other group is, too. In this sense, this is more or less a case par excellence of Bourdieus theory of distinction.

In Search of the Finnish New Middle Class

The way of life and essence of the Finnish new middle class are discussed. Within a theoretical framework that one might call Bourdieuan, the analysis is based on a questionnaire by Pierre Bourdieu in his book La Distinction (1979) and an interview material consisting of life stones of Finnish new middle class people As a preliminary conclusion, it is argued that taste is by no means as important a criterion for the new middle class in Finland as it is in France In the Finnish middle class emphasis is rather on subjectivity, on personal relations and their therapeutic nature, i e. on the way of life in a broader sense. Also, it is argued that the so-called ambivalent type of the new middle class is something specific with regard to both class and modernity.

Bourdieu in Finland: An Account of Bourdieu's Influence on Finnish Sociology

Apart from Durkheim, French sociology has had only a minor influence on the history of Finnish sociology. By contrast, Pierre Bourdieu’s thought arrived in Finland relatively quickly in the 1980s. This was due to La Distinction, which was reviewed in Finland soon after its publication in France. However, it did not reach a larger sociological audience in Finland until the English translation came out in 1984. Later on when some of Bourdieu’s books had been translated into Finnish (e.g., Questions de sociologie came out in Finnish 1985), Bourdieu became one of the best-known contemporary sociologists in Finland. Over the years there have been comparative Finnish studies or other applications based on or critically inspired by Bourdieu’s theories, but in spite of this his impact on Finnish sociology has remained relatively small: no Finnish Bourdieusian school has developed. However, his sociology has become part of Finnish sociological canon, e.g., in Finnish textbooks etc. In this paper the applicability and the “Frenchness” of Bourdieu’s theories are also discussed.