Events: symbolic meaning and value

Jenny Flinn & Dr Matt Frew

Lecture Content

Symbolism, Secular Life & Culture Events: new places, experiences and

meanings Events & Levels of Symbolic Identity Bourdieu: The Field and Capital of

Events

Symbolism, Secular Life & Culture

Symbolic Order - the realm of semiotics

Human history is marked by symbolic relations.

Past Events: Harvest - fun and escape also literal survival relief; Ancient games - sport prowess and benevolence also

political power and position; Religious ritual (weddings, births, funerals, coronation)

- emotive celebration/grief also provides stability and control;

Sense of self and position in the world (ontological anchor and basis of identity)

Symbolism, Secular Life & Culture

Beyond the surface level of the immediately perceived the spaces, objects, actions and experiences of events convey latent or less immediate meanings - the symbolic

As cultural artifacts events convey symbolic ‘utility’ that is demonstrated or ‘measured primarily in terms of the particular kinds of satisfactions…[that] come from consuming ‘meanings’ in their disembodied or intangible form’ (Ransome, 2005: 69)

The challenges and changes of the Enlightenment (discussed in lecture 4) accelerated the symbolic order

Visiting locations, purchase and use of goods and participation in activities were accorded new value and meanings - symbolic associations assimilated and displayed in a new leisure age.

Events: new experiences and meanings

Veblen’s Theory of Leisure Class (1899) captured the transition and growth of new means and meanings behind leisure consumption:

recognized increasing importance of culture to nouveaux riches

Position and social prestige more that just wealth Mark of the gentleman is not only one who ‘consumes beyond

the minimum requirement of subsistence …but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed…He becomes a connoisseur’ (74).

This has increased dramatically:‘Since the 1960s, symbolic differentation has been accomplished with

material objects, facades, and motifs.’ (Sayre and King, 2003: 339) - this reminds us of the ideological dimension of consuming events

Events: new experiences and meanings

Remember ideology - that masked set of ideas, beliefs and values that say this is how life ‘just’ is

We ‘live capitalism through its commodities, and, by living it, we validate and invigorate it.’ (Fiske, 1989:

14)

Events from Rio Carnival to Retrofest, The Open to Octoberfest, Saint Patrick’s Day to Summerfest - are cultural commodities that transmit symbolic meanings Event industries furnish us with new experiences that are interpreted, valued, and thus, importance for modern identities.

Events & Levels of Symbolic Identity

Events, experience and identity:

‘a summary statement about who we are, a symbolic way to display important information about ourselves in an

abbreviated manner - our tastes and choices…and the groups to which we belong’

(Harris, 2005: 155)

Today the old master, or structural identities, such as class, gender or race are regarded as in a state of flux or not as rigid as before. However, while these levels can all be interconnected they still resonate today and impact both positively and negatively within events.

The symbolic association with identity can function on a number of levels

Events & Levels of Symbolic Identity

Events, symbolism and Nation states - projections of power, wealth and cultural superiority (e.g. Berlin Olympics (1936) and Nazi movement); ideological warfare of Moscow Games; commerce LA Games and World Cup); celebrations of culture and economic gain (e.g almost any festival)

Events, symbolism and the City - expos of the past (Great Exhibition Crystal Palace, London, 1851; Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867 continues to Expo 2010, Shanghi);

Reinvigorates notions of civic pride Today ‘festivalisation’ and ‘civic boosterism’ is where ‘the political

and urban managerial elite…fashion collective feeling, identity, emotion and consciousness’ (Waitt, 2004: 399) for political and economic purposes that construct and mediate positive image of a cityscape to the world

Events, symbolism and the Individual - process of individuation, display, BUT ALL seen as cultural competition that provides distinction but also domination

Bourdieu: the Field and Capital of Events

Bourdieu: provides us with a way of seeing how the symbolic meanings of event experiences work; Cultural spectrum (events) masks the hierarchical contestation of class

How the master identity of class has not disappeared but is far more subtle and fluid

Event experiences not only form identities of distinction but also domination

Formula of [(habitus) (capital)] + field = practice

Habitus is literally ‘history turned into nature’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 78) as the dispositions, perceptions and aspirations of sociocultural contexts become physically incorporated within the bodies of individual actors.

Field - ‘series of institutions, rules, conventions, categories, designations…which authorize certain discourses and activities’ (Webb, et al, 2002) - Events

Bourdieu: the Field and Capital of Events

Cultural Capital: incorporated, objectivated and institutionalized (Bourdieu, 1979)

Capital provides the ‘bearer power, status and distinction’ (Hancock & Tyler, 2000: 34) - ultimate aim is symbolic capital

Events are ‘examples of how culture is contested…cultural questions of aesthetics, taste and style cannot be divorced from ‘political’ questions about power, inequality and oppression’ (Waterman, 1998: 55)

Event spaces reproduce culture where capital is required and competed for in and through the experiential acts of events.

In the field of events the experiences are capital, provide identity differentiation and distinction

If competition over cultural capital is key then events must balance mass/elite or exclusivity/inclusivity