Abstract
The introduction to this book sketches the sociological preoccupation with concepts of domination and power in society. The following chapters discuss (a) the power of social structures on the arts and (b) the power of the arts on social structures. The newer terms for understanding these interactions come from postcolonial and intersectional sociology, as inequalities in the arts arise from multiple and interwoven processes of discrimination. Sociological analyses of the arts seek to uncover these power-laden processes, deconstruct established structures, and recognize artistic practices as practices of power. In doing so, it is important to distinguish between power and domination. Either the arts are dominated by rulers external to the arts and their institutionalized structures, or the arts are able to turn the tables and exercise domination via their legitimacy advantage, for example by shaping taste. The politics of cultural production, on the other hand, must be examined as a relationship between power and the arts. The breakdown of the book is presented with chapters in three sections, “Establishing and De-establishing Power in the Arts,” “Arts and the Power of Social Structures,” and “Arts and the Dominance of Political (Dis)Order.” The reciprocal perspectives of “power in the arts” and “power through the arts” are presented through a two-dimensional model whose first dimension is characterized by “domination versus power” and whose second dimension is characterized by “structural constraint versus volitional agency.” All the articles can be placed in this coordinate system of domination (structure) and power (agency), regardless of whether they stand for negative (hegemonic, totalitarian, unjust) or positive (egalitarian, grassroots, balancing) social purposes.
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Notes
- 1.
This statement might be regarded as contradictory to Bourdieu’s field theory. However, this power of coercion (i.e., heteronomy) loses influence when and if the actors of the attacked art field retreat into their artistic autonomy and deny the heteronomous, economically or politically usurped culture content the status of “art”.
- 2.
What is acknowledged as an artistic practice, and what is not, is another common example of how brokers and persisting conventions in different art worlds exert a certain power to define the field. In order to point to these processes, we refer to artistic practices or the arts and not to a more open term such as cultural practices, as all described practices in the different chapters are considered and labelled as artistic/art in their respective fields.
- 3.
We must admit that even though we intended to cover so far under-represented geographical areas and include them in a more or less mainstream research volume such as this one (“mainstream” meaning being published in English by a global publisher such as Springer, covering mostly research of “Western” art practices), the alignment of the chapters appears to be still quite “Western-centric”. Reflecting on what it means to curate and publish this volume also entails acknowledging both the constructiveness of an equal “geographical representation” as well as the power-laden processes in the field of international academic publishing.
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Gaupp, L., Barber-Kersovan, A., Kirchberg, V. (2022). Power and Policies in and by the Arts—Introduction. In: Gaupp, L., Barber-Kersovan, A., Kirchberg, V. (eds) Arts and Power. Kunst und Gesellschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37429-7_1
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