From aesthetic principles to collective sentiments: The logics of everyday judgements of taste

From aesthetic principles to collectivesentiments: The logics of everyday judgements

of taste

Ian Woodward*, Michael Emmison

School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

Abstract

Contemporary research into the sociology of taste has, following Bourdieu (1984), pri-

marily emphasised the role of taste judgements as mechanisms of social and cultural power, asdistinctive markers of social position, or more broadly as implicated in the reproduction ofsocial inequality. We argue that although important, such a preoccupation with the social

distribution of objectified tastes—for example in music, literature, and art—has been at theexpense of investigating the everyday perceptual schemes and resources used by actors toaccomplish a judgement of taste. Our argument is traced using a range of classical and con-

temporary literature which deals with the personal/collective tension in taste, aesthetics andfashion. We use data from a recent national survey to investigate how a sample of ordinaryactors understand the categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste. The analysis shows a strong col-lective strand in everyday definitions of taste, often linked to moral codes of interpersonal

conduct. Also, taste is largely defined by people as a strategy for managing relations withothers, and as a mode of self-discipline which relies on the mastery of a number of generalprinciples that are resources for people to position their own tastes within an imagined social

sphere. The paper proposes a schematic model which accounts for the range of discriminatoryresources used to make judgements of taste.# 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Poetics 29 (2001) 295–316

www.elsevier.com/locate/poetic

0304-422X/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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* Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Woodward).

1. Introduction

Contemporary research into the sociology of taste has invariably been pre-occupied with the view that taste judgements and their underlying aesthetic principlesare matters of social determination. Given its centrality to sociological discourse, itis not surprising that the role of social class has figured prominently in the debatesthat have ensued on these themes. The Ur-text in this genre is, of course, Bourdieu’sDistinction (1984), the work which more than any other challenges Kantian aes-thetics in its insistence that judgements of taste, far from being ‘disinterested’, areimplicated in the very processes by which dominant groups obtain their power andinfluence. More recently the work of Bourdieu on taste and status has been appliedoutside the French context in a range of studies which have developed the nexuslinking class and taste as well as introducing further complexities such as the con-trast between omnivorous and univorous taste structures, or the relative influence ofsocial networks compared with education as formative influences on cultural com-petency (DiMaggio, 1987; Lamont, 1992; Peterson, 1992; Bryson, 1996; Erickson 1996;Peterson and Kern, 1996; Relish, 1997). Whilst there are some important exceptionsto these prevailing views, for example commentators who argue that taste or con-sumption choices may also be ‘‘processes which bind people together’’ (Longhurstand Savage 1996: 295; see also Halle, 1993; Wynne and O’Connor, 1998) overall, theprincipal achievement of contemporary sociological studies of taste has thus been toemphasise that patterns of cultural taste are enmeshed within complexly interactingforms of social and cultural power, by means of which differences in tastes and cul-tural preferences are used as markers of social position and, in regards to socialreproduction, as a way of unequally distributing cultural life-chances.Without seeking to discount the importance of this tradition, in this paper we use

empirical data to explore the formation of taste logics at an individual level, andseek to connect them with broader themes concerning civility, collective sentimentsand techniques of fashioning the self. Our principal argument is that attention to thesocial and cultural correspondences of tastes has left a number of important areasconcerning the ‘socialness’ of taste judgements scarcely touched by the scholarlycommunity. In particular, and as a corollary, we would argue few researchers havebuilt their understandings of taste on the everyday perceptions and attitudes ofordinary actors. Whilst numerous studies of the social distribution of tastes in dif-ferent cultural domains—music, design, literature, etc.—can be found, there is asurprising indifference to the actual logics which inform and, indeed, constitute thesepatterns. In their aggregate form and treated primarily as symbolic markers, as dis-plays of status or distinction, these ‘judgements of taste’ have become reified orobjectified, severed from their underlying lay conceptual or discursive moorings. It isprecisely this everyday discursive realm of taste which concerns us here.Using data from a large representative sample of Australians we investigate the

various meanings which actors attribute to the notion of ‘taste’ and the criteria theyemploy for differentiating between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste. Our findings lead us tosuggest that in many instances everyday judgements of taste are not only understoodas a question of aesthetics but that they are also matters of moral, ethical and communal

296 I. Woodward, M. Emmison / Poetics 29 (2001) 295–316

sensibility. Moreover, in their understandings of taste lay actors proffer views andforms of reasoning which are surprisingly consistent with many aspects of the clas-sical writings on taste which have been largely neglected in the recent structuralaccounts. Most contemporary studies of taste, that is, in their efforts to account forsocial distribution of cultural choices, have failed to engage with earlier under-standings of how tastes operate in a communal way, theorisations which, we arguewere prefigured in classical interpretations of taste and fashion. Before turning toconsider our data, we outline the principal themes which writers from Kant onwardssaw as implicated in making judgements of taste.

2. Theories of taste—personal and collective tensions

2.1. The Kantian legacy

Although he is generally regarded as the father of modern aesthetics it is largelythrough Bourdieu’s ‘social critique’ that Kant’s ideas have infiltrated the socio-logical community. In Kant’s terms, judgements of taste are not based on logical,cognitive principles. In order to judge what is beautiful, a purely ‘esthetic’ judgementmust be made. The central component of this judgement is the feeling of pleasure ordispleasure provoked in the viewer of an object. In order to specify what is dis-tinctive about aesthetic judgements, Kant distinguishes between three forms ofdelight: delight in the agreeable, delight in the good and delight in the beautiful. Hisargument is that only the third of these—that of delight in the beautiful—is devoidof interest. Things which are agreeable gratify us; things which are good commandour esteem or approval. As he puts it in these cases ‘‘It is not merely the object, butalso its real existence, that pleases. On the other hand the judgement of taste is simplycontemplative, i.e. it is a judgement which is indifferent as to the existence of an object’’(Kant, 1952: 48). Thus, emptied of notions of use, sensuous pleasures, or pecuniaryinfluences that might taint perception of beauty, people are freed to contemplatethings and judge their pure beauty based on the evocation of stirred feelings.It is, of course, Kant’s insistence that judgements of taste must be ‘‘wholly disin-

terested’’ which is the key sticking point for Bourdieu (1984: 41). For Bourdieu,disinterested judgements are the preserve only of the dominant classes—those whoseeconomic ‘distance from necessity’ permits them the luxury of these contemplativeforms of aesthetic reflection. In contrast, Bourdieu identifies a popular or working-class aesthetic which contravenes Kant’s standard of taste because it is squarelybased on the criteria of interest: gratification of pleasure through the senses, utility,or moral position; a ‘‘refusal of the refusal which is the starting point of the highaesthetic’’ (Bourdieu 1984: 32). As he makes clear

‘‘Nothing is more alien to popular consciousness than the idea of an aesthetic pleasure that, to put it in

Kantian terms, is independent of the charming of the senses’’ (Bourdieu 1984: 42).

It is, however, Kant’s arguments concerning the universal characteristic of judge-ments of taste which we seek to develop here. Kant goes on in his Second Moment

I. Woodward, M. Emmison / Poetics 29 (2001) 295–316 297

of the Analytic of the Beautiful to argue that given the satisfaction of the criteria ofdisinterestedness, a person can reasonably assume that his/her assessment of some-thing as beautiful (as opposed to merely pleasurable in sensual form) has a universalvalidity.‘‘Many things for him possess charm and agreeableness—no one cares about that;

but when he puts a thing on a pedestal and calls it beautiful, he demands the samedelight from others. He judges not merely for himself, but for all men, and thenspeaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. Thus he says the thing is beautiful;and it is not as if he counted on others agreeing in his judgement of liking owing tohis having found them in such agreement on a number of occasions, but he demandsthis agreement of them. He blames them if they judge differently, and denies themtaste, which he still requires of them as something they ought to have’’ (Kant1952:52).The theme of universal validity has application to Kant’s sensus communis of taste,

presented in the Fourth Moment. From a sociological point of view, this idea of acommon sense of taste is provocative, and has important affinities to later accountsof fashion and taste in the classical sociological essays by Simmel (1904[1957]) andBlumer (1969), and attempts to understand the possibility of aesthetic communitiesin works by Bauman (1991), Ferry (1993), Gronow (1997), Maffesoli (1996) andLyotard (1988). Kant maintains that tastes only seem to make sense, or acquirevalidity, in reference to others. We are not arguing here that Kant’s analysis isproto-sociological. Indeed, it is interesting to observe that although the data wepresent in this paper report the schemes and repertoires people use to distinguishbetween what is aesthetically ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘tasteful’ or ‘tasteless’, such expres-sions would clearly fail to satisfy Kant’s criterion of disinterestedness. The assort-ment of schemes we report are generally strongly linked to a range of (thoroughly‘interested’) social conventions and considerations, which plainly contravene Kant’smodel. In Kant’s model, sensus communis is contingent on the criterion of disin-terestedness. In any pure judgement of taste people should judge beauty in the sameway—there is a harmony in social judgements which assumes an idea of ‘‘commonsense’’:

‘‘In all judgements by which we describe anything as beautiful we tolerate no one else being of a different

opinion, and in taking up this position we do not rest our judgement upon concepts, but only our feeling.

Accordingly, we introduce this fundamental feeling not as a private feeling, but as a public sense. Now,

for this purpose, experience cannot be made the ground of this common sense, for the latter is invoked to

justify judgements containing an ‘ought’. The assertion is not that every one will fall in with our judge-

ment, but rather that every one ought to agree with it. Here I put forward my judgement of taste as an

example of the judgement of common sense, and attribute it on that account exemplary validity’’ (Kant,

1952:84).

2.2. Elite and collective models of taste

Kant’s argument that judgements of taste are not purely private or individual butdisplay an orientation to, or awareness of, communal or collective standards re-


emerge, albeit in different forms, in the classical sociological literature on fashion,taste and consumption. In the work of both Veblen and Simmel the maintenance ofclass distinctions was seen as the primary mechanism driving the conspicuous con-sumption of the elite strata and their attendant concern for visible signs of differ-entiation from other classes. In Veblen’s (1899) model, the leisured classes are ableto demonstrate their status through wasteful expenditures. Concomitantly, main-stream or popular taste judges beauty not by means of aesthetic criteria but rathervia the pecuniary canons of the leisured classes. As Veblen puts it,

‘‘The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is not commonly present, consciously, in our canons of taste,

but it is none the less present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is

beautiful’’ (Veblen 1899[1934]:128).

Equally for Simmel class considerations underpinned the fashion mechanism inmodern society. For Simmel, fashion was the pivotal means of reconciling the per-ennial problem of ‘‘socialistic adaptation to society and individual departure fromits demands’’ (Simmel 1904[1957]:542).

‘‘Fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation; it leads the

individual upon the road which all travel, it furnishes a general condition, which resolves the conduct of

every individual into a mere example. At the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need of differ-

entiation, the tendency towards dissimilarity, the desire for change and contrast, on the one hand by a

constant change of contents, ... on the other hand because fashions differ for different classes the fashions

of the upper stratum of society are never identical with those of the lower; in fact they are abandoned by

the former as soon as the latter prepares to appropriate them’’ (Simmel 1904[1957]:543).

For Simmel (like Kant and later Blumer), fashion was a kind of public playing outof taste mechanisms—it was a domain where levels of public taste were constantlyestablished, and re-appraised (1904[1957]:549). Imitation was a fundamental com-ponent of this process, because it was the central practice or technique for indivi-duals to orient themselves to the social. As it involved both reflection and mindlesscopying, Simmel characterised this component of fashion as at once ‘‘a child ofthought and thoughtlessness’’ (1904[1957]:542). For the modern person, imitationwas not merely a negative thing, for it did free the individual from the responsibilityof maintaining self, and the work of generating an authentic individual style. How-ever, in the process of copying, the modern imitator forfeited creativity and genuineself-purpose. The modern fashion imitator was merely a ‘‘vessel of social contexts’’(1904[1957]:543). Given imitation was such a fundamental process in fashion, andhence a characteristic force of modernity as well, there must be a social group whosefashions served as models available to be imitated. It is because of this importantdemarcation between those who set the fashion agenda and those who followed, thatSimmel’s analysis of fashion is largely a class-based model of emulation, where thelower classes constantly sought to imitate upper class fashions. Simmel argues thatfashion, in its most pure form, is the domain of the upper classes (1904[1957]:545).Technically, the lower class possess few, if any, genuine fashions of their own. See-mingly, this is what led to Fred Davis (1992:111) suggesting that Simmel’s idea offashion is a rather more subtle version of the classical trickle down model.


It is in Blumer’s (1969) analysis of the deficiencies of early conceptualisations offashion where Simmel’s logic is most strongly critiqued, and the theme of the col-lective or communal character to taste reemerges most clearly. Blumer’s argumentsconstitute a departure from the elite-to-mass model of fashion and taste, representedby Veblen and Simmel, in a number of crucial ways. One of the structural keys to hiscritique of Simmel is the conception of fashion as a modern process par excellence.Blumer’s claim that the classical approach to fashion was time-space contingentallows him to develop a more complex model of taste and fashion mechanisms. Incontrast to early-modern social forms in which Simmel’s analysis was framed, fash-ion in modern societies is articulated and differentiated across a range of fields. Insuch a model, the elite-to-mass conception of the transmission of fashion becomestoo restrictive as the fashion mechanism now incorporates the elite group.

‘‘The efforts of an elite class to set itself apart in appearance takes place inside of the movement of fashion

instead of being its cause. The prestige of elite groups, in place of setting the direction of the fashion

movement, is effective only to the extent to which they are recognised as representing and portraying the

movement. The people in other classes who consciously follow the fashion do so because it is the fashion

and not because of the separate prestige of the elite group’’ (Blumer, 1969:281–282).

Blumer characterises the mechanism of fashion as one of ‘collective selection’.Selection is the social process of arrival at a ‘collective taste’. The social process ofselecting tastes is described by Blumer like an economic auction of competing tastesand fashions in a social-aesthetic marketplace, where elite and mass groups pick andchoose from emerging differentiations of styles according to their own aestheticvalues. All the time, this ‘‘unwitting groping for suitable forms of expression’’ (Blu-mer, 1969:282) pushes forward the direction of collective tastes.

‘‘The fashion mechanism appears not in response to a need of class differentiation and class emulation but

in response to a wish to be in fashion, to be abreast of what has good standing, to express new tastes

which are emerging in a changing world’’ (Blumer, 1969: 282).

Although his work is not intended as a contribution to these themes there arenevertheless some intriguing similarities between the literature on taste and fashionand Elias’ account of the civilizing process. This is not only because manners arebehavioural components of what people consider to be in good or bad taste, but alsobecause Elias’ conceptualisation of the drive toward civilisation as a tension invol-ving psychological and social-structural elements is akin to theories of fashion dis-semination. We return to this issue in a later section of the paper.In different ways, then, we can observe a central strand in both philosophical

works and the classical and contemporary sociological literature on taste whichargues for consideration of the role that collective or communal elements play injudgements of taste. Precisely how such collective sentiments play themselves out inthe formation of actual judgements, however, remains unclear. It is this issuewhich we seek to address in the remainder of the paper through a consideration ofthe logics which inform everyday understandings of good and bad taste. Ouranalysis is distinguished by its approach. Rather than addressing what people like—


as do studies of ‘objectified’ tastes—we explore the means or resources peoplehave for expressing their preferences, and the relation of these to wider culturalpractices.

3. Data and methodological procedures

The data used in the following analysis have been collected as part of theAustralian Everyday Culture Project (AECP). The AECP is large scale investigationof the cultural tastes and preferences of Australians, in part modeled on Bourdieu’sDistinction, covering inter alia music, television, film, literature, newspapers andmagazines, the visual arts and design, sport, housing and furniture, fashion andfood. Data for the project have been obtained primarily through a nationalrandom sample survey (N=2756) as well as focus groups and in-depth interviews. Acomprehensive account of the results of this project is available in a recently pub-lished monograph, Accounting for Tastes: Australian everyday cultures (Bennettet al., 1999). Although the AECP gave primary emphasis to the collection ofquantitative data relating to the taste structures of particular cultural domains, theproject also sought qualitative information on particular taste preferences. In thispaper we focus primarily on one key question used to elicit these qualitativedata.The question extracted from the AECP survey for the present analysis asked the

respondent to ‘‘indicate in a few words what you think good taste and bad tasteentail’’. Respondents were requested to report what they understand by each termand (or alternately) to use examples to assist in the formulation of their response.An initial coding was undertaken to distinguish ‘short’ (one or two words) from‘long’ (up to two lines in length- the amount provided on the survey form) answers.This initial coding yielded a total of 619 long responses, constituting nearly one-quarter (23%) of the total AECP sample and which form the data for our investi-gation here. All responses were introduced to NUDIST qualitative data analysissoftware for coding and categorisation. At this stage of analysis, the principles ofopen-coding as recommended by Strauss and Corbin (1990) were followed. Essen-tially, open-coding is a data sensitive analytic procedure that rests on the use of aconstant-comparative technique (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) to generate groundedconcepts from texts, which are in turn continually fashioned and ‘reshaped’ by theresearcher in light of new textual data. The initial open-code of all 619 responsesgenerated seventy-seven categories, consisting of forty-three categories for the goodtaste responses and thirty-four for the bad taste responses. These categories weregenerated directly from the words used by the respondents, and can therefore beseen as the least abstracted stage of the coding process. In the next phase of coding,at a higher level of abstraction of responses, organising concepts were introduced bythe researchers. These were an attempt to develop a theoretical order for the pro-liferation of concepts generated at the open-coding stage. While these organisingconcepts should be seen as being grounded in the textual material of the responses,they also form the basis of the theoretical ideas we introduce in this paper- quality,


quantity and composition, socialness and an ‘other’ orientation in taste practice, andself-discipline or restraint.

4. The abstract classificatory schemes of taste judgements

Our data reveal that people possess an assortment of conceptual schemes whichthey invoke to classify objects, behaviours, attitudes, or aspects of self-presentationinto broad categories of tasteful or tasteless. In our initial appraisal of the data,these schemes or ideas have been organised into three prominent analytic spheres:quantity, composition and quality. While it is clear from our data that these areimportant schemes of judgement, our analysis is not able to demonstrate the extentof mutual interaction between each of these classificatory schemes. Empirical ques-tions dealing with whether actors employ such ideas as autonomous judgement‘repertoires’ or ‘scripts’, or whether they are integrated within a matrix of schemes oftaste judgement would constitute valuable follow-up research in this area.

4.1. Quantity

An important component of assessing something or someone as in ‘good taste’involves an appreciation of the acceptable quantity of the thing to present to others;that is, gauging the socially acceptable, ‘correct’ amount of something. For example,wearing clothing with too much or too little colour, saying too many or too fewwords in a particular social situation, having too much ‘product’ in one’s hair, orhaving shoe heels that are a centimetre too high may all tip a person outside accep-table limits of what is tasteful. An assessment of what is acceptable is of courserelative to the social situation, so applying rules of appropriateness are crucial.Employing notions of quantity to assist taste judgements are common for manyrespondents, but particularly for women and those with higher levels of education.Of those who use notions of ‘quantity’ to think about taste, women comprise nearlytwo-thirds (62.5%) and those with tertiary education make up nearly half (45.6%).The use of quantity to think about taste is succinctly expressed by a female respon-dent who says that good taste is ‘‘knowing when enough is enough’’. In relation topersonal interactions another says it involves ‘‘economy of gestures and manner’’.Contributing food as an example, a female respondent says that what is tasteful is‘‘good food but not too much on the plate’’. Significant orienting concepts for jud-ging good taste employed by respondents are understatement and overstatement,which are linked to quantitative notions of what is perceived to be too much or toolittle of something. Characteristically, understatement is imagined by respondentsusing words like ‘‘restraint’’, ‘‘simplicity’’, ‘‘discrete’’, ‘‘subtle’’ and ‘‘subdued’’;while too much or overstatement is imagined as ‘‘gaudy’’, ‘‘showy’’, ‘‘ostentatious’’,‘‘overpowering’’ and ‘‘extreme’’. The idea that taste judgements involve assessments ofquantity illustrate that part of a person’s ability to rest on the correct side of the tastespectrum, at least in others’ eyes, comes down to their mastery of what constitutesacceptable limits to behaviour and self-presentation in different social situations.


4.2. Composition

In practice, judgements about what is ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ of some-thing clearly cannot easily come down to a fine quantitative estimate. Thinking toohard about the exact number of words suitable for a workplace hallway greeting, orthe precise length of what is considered an appropriate length of hair is notonly impractical but socially absurd; however, it is salient to consider that peoplegenerally say they know when something or someone looks ‘right’, or some-how ‘wrong’. We use the term ‘composition’ to refer to this particular sentiment. Asa social skill it is neatly invoked by a female respondent who summarises good tasteas ‘‘when things go well together’’, or more definitively by a male respondentwho describes having good taste as ‘‘a measure of a persons ability to select ororganise matters in a pleasing way to the majority of people’’. The questionremains, however, how do people distinguish when things ‘go together’, or areorganised in a pleasing way? What respondents suggest is that they rely on subtlecues to help them gauge the taste expertise demonstrated in the verbal or physicalpresentation of others. The data show that these assessments about how expertlycomposed aspects of a person are rely heavily on perceived measures of harmonyand appropriateness. Preliminary analysis shows that these perceptual cues are notfound uniformly across the sample.Though cited by respondents from all social groups, the use of ideas like ‘‘har-

mony’’, ‘‘balance’’, ‘‘complementary’’, ‘‘flow’’, ‘‘blending’’, and their antithesis suchas ‘‘clashing’’, ‘‘mismatched’’ and ‘‘garish’’ are more frequently, though not exclu-sively, made by women and those with higher levels of education. Marginally overtwo-thirds (67.8%) of those who refer to harmony as significant in judging taste arewomen, forty percent (40.9%) are tertiary educated and one third (33.3%) are inprofessional occupations.

4.3. Qualities

For an action or object to be in good taste it must have certain nonfunctionalqualities. The possession of these qualities is not always perceived to be the exclusivedomain of those groups with significant material resources, for feasibly one couldstrive to be ‘‘elegant’’, ‘‘refined’’, ‘‘unobtrusive’’, and ‘‘coordinated’’ without invest-ing significant monetary resources. Likewise, having money does not guarantee thepossession of some type of tasteful universal. Consider the examples used to describegood taste by two men: the first, a tertiary educated professional in the 36–45 agebracket says good taste is ‘‘enduring, timeless, understated, dignified, elegant, e.g.Jaguar cars, Italian woolen trousers and shoes’’, the other, a labourer with a tradescertificate in the 26–35 age bracket, says ‘‘relaxing on a 38 foot boat a rod in onehand and a beer in the other’’. Both examples require significant monetary resour-ces, but signify very different conceptions of how it could be ‘tastefully’ spent.Generally, notions of ‘‘elegance’’, ‘‘timelessness’’, and ‘‘classicism’’ are employed bya small number of tertiary educated professionals, they are also most likely to bewomen.


5. Conceptual logics of taste judgements: basic dimensions

To further refine our analysis we undertook a recoding of our data using twobroad variables generated from themes developed at the initial coding stage. Thesetwo variables have been titled ‘domain of taste’ and ‘basis of taste judgement’.The ‘domain of taste’ variable is designed to capture the materiality or concrete-

ness of lay taste judgements. By domain we mean the specific social, cultural orconsumption sphere to which the respondent principally refers in their explanationof what is entailed by good and bad taste. For example, a reference to clothing, themedia, or the home, as the foremost sphere that grounds their explanation. The‘basis’ of the taste judgement, on the other hand, refers to whether understandingsof good and bad taste are principally couched in terms of a personal or aestheticjudgement, or alternately by recourse to what we have called collective or socialnorms. In operational terms a personal or aesthetic judgement was deemed to havebeen made when the respondent interprets the meaning of good and bad taste prin-cipally through reference to the personal or aesthetic characteristics of imaginedothers. For example, if good taste was seen as someone ‘‘dressing smartly’’, or‘‘having a stylish house’’, then this was assessed as being of a personal or aestheticnature. Alternately, if good taste was thought of as ‘‘dressing to suit the situation’’,or ‘‘having a house colour that is in keeping with the rest of the street’’, then suchresponses were judged to be of a collective nature, where some perceived social normis referred to and personal preferences are to some extent compromised in relationto social requirements.

5.1. Conceptions of taste and the individual/collective tension

In this section we examine in more detail the results pertaining to the two coredimensions of ‘domain’ and ‘basis’ of taste judgements. We look first at the domainsof cultural practice used to ground definitions of good and bad taste (Table 1), andsecond, we consider the basis of definitions of taste (Table 2).Table 1 illustrates two important points about the domains of cultural practices

used by respondents to define good and bad taste. The first—which might be

Table 1

Domains of cultural practice used to ground definitions of good and bad taste (column %)

Domain of practice principally used When defininggood taste

When definingbad taste

No specific domain used 53 42Interpersonal conduct 24 33Clothing and personal appearance 11 10Home design and architecture 3 2Media 6 9Misc. others 2 3

Totals (n) (619) (619)

Notes: p<0.01.


construed as a negative finding—relates to the deployment of abstract, conceptualresources when defining taste. A substantial number of our respondents do notemploy a specific domain in their explanations: just over fifty percent (53%) offeredno specific domain in their understanding of good taste and just over forty percent(42%) formulated their idea of bad taste in a similar way. These respondents definedgood and bad taste by using abstract ideas—the notions of quality, quantity orcomposition we have just examined—rather than specific taste practices or fields ofpractices. The following examples are representative of such abstract responses:

‘‘good taste is something that is classic, stylish, elegant and most importantly suits you and your

outlook’’,

‘‘simple lines, functionality, elegance, colour coordination, subtle, comfortable’’.

The second notable feature in Table 1 is the popularity of ideas about inter-personal conduct as ways of illustrating both good and bad taste. This category ofresponse was by far the largest of all the specific domains that were offered andrefers to practices such as politeness, courtesy, discretion and sensitivity. This fea-ture of our data is intriguing. We did not find music, literature, film or the visualarts—the principal domains traditionally employed by sociologists to study patternsof objectified taste—to be important in the way our respondents defined taste.Rather, ideas relating to conduct and the treatment of others in everyday dealingsare the most commonly employed practical ways people use to explain taste: up toone-third of our sample define taste through notions of interpersonal conduct.Equally intriguing is the finding that a recourse to the theme of interpersonal con-duct is most likely to be made when seeking to explain bad taste: one-third (33.1%)of the examples of bad taste made reference to interpersonal conduct as opposed tojust under a quarter (24.4%) of the good taste responses.Formulations such as these clearly point to the way in which we can begin to think

of lay understandings of taste as grounded in communal or collective sentimentsrather than derived from aesthetic principles. This aspect of our research is evidentin the data in Table 2.The trend to deploy notions of collective ideals and interpersonal behavioural

norms to define bad taste in particular is prominent again when the basis of tastejudgements is considered (Table 2). What is most evident here is the reversal of thepersonal/collective basis of taste judgements.

Table 2

The personal/collective dimension in judgements of good and bad taste (row %)

Basis of judgement

principally used

Personal and/or

aesthetic judgement

Collective or

social judgement

Totals (n)

When defining good taste 54 46 (619)

When defining bad taste 42 58 (619)

Notes: p<0.01.


The results show that when respondents sought to explain good taste they weremore likely to utilize personal judgements (54.1%); however, when defining badtaste collective or social norms were likely to be prominent in their response(58.3%). The invocation of such collective or social norms is evident in the followingexamples:

‘‘socially offensive and thoughtless behaviour’’,

‘‘outlandish behaviour, body actions and speech’’,

‘‘unreasoned, avoidable, malicious and hurtful behaviour’’.

In contrast the socialness of good taste was evident when respondents spoke ofthemes such as ‘‘appropriateness’’, ‘‘acceptability’’, and ‘‘consideration’’:

‘‘pleasing to a majority of people and inoffensive to all’’,

‘‘anything which is considered to be morally and culturally acceptable by the general populace in which

one resides’’.

These patterns raise two important theoretical implications. The first relates to therelative difficulty of defining good taste compared to bad taste. To some degree itseems easier for people to specify what they do not like than what they like. Bour-dieu has observed that ‘‘it is no accident that, when they (taste judgements) have tobe justified, they are asserted purely negatively, by the refusal of other tastes. Inmatters of taste, more than anything else, all determination is negation, and tastesare perhaps first and foremost distastes, disgust provoked by horror or visceralintolerance (‘‘sick-making’’) of the tastes of others’’ (Bourdieu 1984:56). The datawe have examined provide support for this proposition to the extent that our sampleappears to be able to formulate concrete instances of ‘bad taste’ more readily thanthose which illustrate ‘good taste’. Second, our findings suggest that the resourcespeople use to express their understanding of taste depends on whether they areassessing this positively or negatively. One way to think of what might be happeninghere is to say that good and bad taste judgements seem to require different discursivestrategies rather than being variants of a single operation at opposite ends of a tastecontinuum. Judgements of bad taste discursively invoke the imprimatur of ‘the col-lectivity’ as well as being more easily formulated concretely. Good taste, alter-natively, resonates more as a matter of personal of aesthetic judgement, but thedifficulty of using such reference points results in a greater proliferation of abstractexamples.

5.2. Descriptive patterns: Social differences in the individual/collective dimension ofdefinitions of taste

In the following section we consider the influence of three important variables onthe formulation of everyday definitions of taste: educational attainment, gender andage. Our data demonstrate a number of relevant social differences in the ways people


think about the categories of good and bad taste. Perhaps the simplest pattern—andin some ways the most intuitively self-evident—concerns the impact of level of edu-cational attainment. As Tables 3 and 4 show, the proportion of respondents whoemploy abstract concepts when defining good and bad taste increases as the level ofeducation attainment increases from 20% for those with a primary education onlyto over sixty percent (62.8%) for those with a university education in definitions ofgood taste, and from sixteen percent to fifty-four percent (53.8%) for the bad tasteresponses. These differences are taken up in large part by the associated change inpercentages of those who invoke the theme of interpersonal conduct. The odds ofexplaining the meaning of good taste by reference to interpersonal conduct amongprimary educated respondents is nearly four times as large (OR=3.8, 95%CI=1.6–6.8) as the odds for those with tertiary education, and three and a half times as largewhen explaining the meaning of bad taste (OR=3.6, 95% CI=1.5–8.2)1.When the role of gender is considered two important findings emerge (Tables 5

and 6). Firstly, when defining both good and bad taste, women are more likely thanmen to specify a particular domain of taste practice. We offer a couple of examplesdrawn from the data to illustrate this difference. A male respondent invokes generalprinciples in maintaining that good taste is ‘‘pleasing to a majority of people and

Table 3

Domain of cultural practice used to define good taste by educational attainment (row %)

Stage finish.

Education

Abstract

definition

(no domain)

Interpersonal

conduct

Clothing and

appearance

Home design

and architecture

Media Totals (n)

Primary 20 44 16 12 8 (25)

Some secondary 48 30 13 1 5 (132)

Complete secondary 47 27 9 2 11 (129)

Vocational 54 19 17 2 4 (52)

Part tertiary 59 21 9 4 5 (95)

Completed tertiary 63 17 10 3 5 (156)

Notes: p<0.001.

Table 4

Domain of cultural practice used to define bad taste by educational attainment (row %)

Stage finish.

Education

Abstract

definition

(no domain)

Interpersonal

conduct

Clothing and

appearance

Home design

and architecture

Media Totals (n)

Primary 16 56 12 8 8 (25)

Some secondary 37 38 11 2 8 (132)

Complete secondary 36 36 6 1 18 (129)

Vocational 35 37 12 4 12 (52)

Part tertiary 51 26 13 2 5 (95)

Completed tertiary 54 26 9 2 8 (156)

Notes: p<0.001.


inoffensive to all’’, and, ‘‘a practical opinion not too distorted from the generalpublic view’’. Conversely the following specific responses come from two femalerespondents who say that good taste is ‘‘holding conversations at a dinner partywhich intend to involve everyone’’, or ‘‘refined speech and behaviour which is con-sistent with current standards and attracts favourable comments from others’’. Theodds of women using an abstract explanation, where no specific domain of taste isemployed, is only two-thirds as large as the odds of men employing similar cate-gories (OR=0.68, 95% CI=0.49–0.94).The second important gender difference is found in the specific domains males and

females use to define taste. Table 5 shows a small difference in the area of inter-personal conduct. More important is the difference in clothing. The odds of womenusing the domain of clothing and personal appearance to explain the meaning ofboth good and bad taste is more than twice as large as the odds for men makingsimilar explanations (for good taste definitions, OR=2.19, 95% CI=1.3–3.8, forbad taste definitions OR=2.1, 95% CI=1.2–3.6).Perhaps the most significant source of variation in the making of taste judgements

is that of the age of the respondent (Tables 7 and 8). The clear pattern revealed isthat as age of respondent increases, there is a linear decrease in the likelihood thatdefinitions of both good and bad taste will be made along personal-oriented,aesthetic lines and a corresponding recourse to collective concepts. Table 8shows that, in relation to bad taste, less than half (45.6%) of under 25s base theirdefinitions of taste in collective concepts in contrast to over seventy percent ofpeople aged 60 or over (71.5%). The odds of a respondent in the 18–25 agegroup using a personal or aesthetic concept to explain the meaning of bad taste isnearly two and a half times as large as the odds of a respondent in the 60 and above

Table 6

Domains of cultural practice used by men and women to define bad taste (row %)

Abstract

definition

(no domain)

Interpersonal

conduct

Clothing and

appearance

Home design

and architecture

Media Misc. others Totals (n)

Females 39 36 13 2 8 2 (345)

Males 47 29 7 2 11 4 (272)

Notes: p<0.05.

Table 5

Domains of cultural practice used by men and women to define good taste (row %)

Abstract

definition

(no domain)

Interpersonal

conduct

Clothing and

appearance

Home design

and architecture

Media Misc. others Totals (n)

Females 49 26 15 3 6 1 (345)

Males 58 22 7 2 7 4 (272)

Notes: p<0.01.


age group using a personal or aesthetic concept. Equally important is the choice ofinterpersonal conduct as the primary domain to express taste judgements. The oddsof a respondent aged 60 and over explaining their understanding of taste in terms ofinterpersonal conduct is more than three times as large as the odds of those in the18–25 age group (OR=3.5, 95% CI=1.8–6.6), who prefer personal and aestheticconcepts in their explanation.Fig. 1 summarises these various trends. The diagram is an attempt to portray the

conceptual resources used in formulating notions of good and bad taste as a matrixderived from the core dimensions of ‘abstract/specific’ and ‘collective-social/perso-nal-aesthetic’. The upper-left quadrant of the matrix is occupied by resources whichare simultaneously abstract and collective in character. These resources—terms suchas ‘considerate’, ‘appropriate’ or ‘thoughtful’, are typically drawn upon by olderrespondents, men more than women and those with higher levels of education. Theupper-right quadrant, although still in the collective half of the figure, housesresources for thinking about taste which invoke specific behaviours or acts towardothers, like ‘‘cruelty’’, ‘‘kindness’’ and ‘‘good manners’’. These are more likely to beused by older people, women, and those with minimal education. The two lowerquadrants of the matrix each contain resources whose principal characteristic is that

Table 8

Basis of bad taste judgments by age (row %)

Age group Principally employ

personal or aesthetic

concepts when defining

bad taste

Principally employ

collective or social


bad taste

Totals (n)

18–25 54 46 (94)

26–35 50 50 (129)

36–45 39 61 (151)

46–59 39 61 (125)

Over 60 28 72 (116)

Notes: p<0.01.

Table 7

Basis of good taste judgments by age (row %)

Age group Principally employ

personal or aesthetic


good taste

Principally employ

collective or social


good taste

Totals (n)

18–25 65 35 (94)

26–35 63 37 (129)

36–45 52 48 (151)

46–59 49 51 (125)

Over 60 43 57 (116)

Notes: p<0.01.


they rely upon the use of personal or aesthetic criteria in making judgements oftaste. The bottom-right quadrant locates specific examples of these inherently per-sonal matters: for example wearing ‘‘matching clothes’’, ‘‘appropriate clothes’’, or‘‘speaking clearly’’. Once again these are resources associated with older respon-dents, women and lower education. Finally in the bottom-left quadrant of thematrix we have abstract examples of these personal or aesthetic frames—resourcesmost commonly employed by tertiary educated and younger respondents.While it is not the purpose of this paper to seek a comprehensive explanation of

such trends, given such decisive and intriguing results it is worthwhile reflectingbriefly on how these results fit with other findings in studies of tastes. In relation tothe impact of gender on aesthetic judgement, Bourdieu’s suggestion that womentend to employ aesthetic distinctions less frequently and systematically than men,and therefore ‘‘men are, ex officio, on the side of culture whereas women (like theworking class) are cast on the side of nature’’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 40) deserves furtherscrutiny. While our findings do show that men are more likely to explain the mean-ing of taste via abstract concepts (Tables 5 and 6), it is also apparent that women’saesthetic expertise lies in their ability to offer a large range of specific, groundedexamples of good and bad taste. This finding is supported in other recent research.For example, Madigan and Munro (1996) found that women tend to bear chief

Fig. 1. Conceptual resources in the determination of good and bad taste judgements.


responsibility for decorative choices in the home. In their study of Australian tastecultures, Bennett et al. (1999) report that in relation to domestic decoration womentalk animatedly about their homes, while men tend to be taciturn, distancing fromquestions of aesthetics and oriented towards practical issues around the home. Also,in his interviews with shoppers, Colin Campbell (1997: 176) reports evidence thatmale interviewees ‘‘have difficulty making judgements of taste’’, and that some menavoid aesthetic questions altogether. The influence of sex role socialisation may wellbe important here, and we note that the cultural assignment of consumption as afeminine activity has been well documented in feminist literature, and acknowledgedin the consumption studies literature (see Campbell, 1997). In relation to the ques-tion of age and aesthetic judgements, our clear finding is that young people preferaesthetic concepts to explain the meaning of good and bad taste, while older peo-ple’s explanations are grounded in collective or social concepts (Tables 7 and 8).Such a finding is consistent with the ‘postmodern consumption’ thesis, which hassuggested that new hedonistic regimes of consumerism proliferate in postmodernsocieties, and that younger people are the first to adopt these new styles and forms(see Featherstone, 1987; Lash and Urry, 1994; Campbell, 1995).

6. Discussion: The sentiments of good and bad taste

6.1. Introduction

In his inquiry into the history of manners Norbert Elias illustrates how emergingmodels of taste refinement are linked with increasingly differentiated modes of self-restraint. Elias’ imperative is to explain historical changes in human conduct andsentiment given a mass of historical data about manners, and the bounds of socialacceptability of a range of bodily functions across numerous social settings. One ofElias’ central arguments is that historical changes in sentiments of civility movetoward self-restraint (1994: 443), rather than external or institutional restraints. ForElias, this historical process is linked to shifts in patterns of ‘danger zones’, fromphysical combat to shame, and to the emergence of cultural symbols based aroundmoney, prestige and distinction (1994: 456). Activated by the ‘‘drive economy’’ ofshame, fear and embarrassment, the human personality tends toward ‘‘continuousreflection, foresight, and calculation, self-control, precise and articulate regulationof one’s own effects; knowledge of the whole terrain, human and non-human, inwhich one acts, become more and more indispensable preconditions of social suc-cess’’ (Elias, 1994:476). Momentary inclinations are thus suppressed, as peopleadapt their behaviour to what they perceive to be the ‘‘tempo’’ of the era (1994:456). Changes in models of refinement are formed slowly and relatively ‘‘noiselessly’’(1994: 471), and based on self-reflection and the continuous referencing of conductin relation to others (1994: 445).Whilst survey data such as ours cannot be used to assess the validity of the pro-

cesses which are at the core of Elias’ theory there are, nevertheless, some intriguingaffinities to be found. In this final section we revisit our data and consider the extent


to which the schemes people use in making everyday assessments of taste resonatewith Elias’ theoretical point about the growing restraint and attunement of conducttoward others. We describe these interlinked themes broadly as the ‘socialness’ oftaste judgements. Specifically, our analysis shows that this orientation to others inunderstandings of tastefulness incorporates sentiments of taste which rest upon theprinciples of attunement to others, and self-restraint or discipline.

6.2. The socialness of taste judgements—attunement and restraint

The socialness of taste judgements are evident in terms such as ‘‘thoughtful’’,‘‘civil’’, ‘‘courteous’’, ‘‘politeness’’, ‘‘discretion’’, ‘‘sensitivity’’ and above all by theword ‘‘considerate’’. The word ‘‘considerate’’ is found in 84 cases in the qualitativeanalysis, constituting around 13.5% of all responses. Conversely bad taste is ima-gined as ‘‘selfish’’, ‘‘self-opinionated’’, ‘‘insensitive’’, ‘‘confrontational’’ and ‘‘vul-gar’’. The practice of consideration for others in material and behavioural choices issummed up by this response:

‘‘things that are in good taste are generally not upsetting or disgusting to the general public, people who

act in good taste care about the people around them and do not want to upset them’’.

As illustrated in the following examples, essentially this seems to amount to pre-senting oneself in ways perceived as appropriate by others. An older male says thatgood taste is to:

‘‘have good manners, treat people with decorum, dress in a suitable fashion, be an example to other people’’;

similarly another reports good taste as:

‘‘conforming to a standard which is recognised that will not offend the average person—morally, sexually,

visually’’.

The skill of determining the appropriateness of something for a particular cir-cumstance is a crucial element of the taste judgement. A female respondent statesthat the key to good taste is ‘‘a knowledge of what is acceptable at the right time andplace’’. Displaying good or bad taste in something is not necessarily a matter forabsolute judgement, because having either a surplus or lack of taste is not alwaysinherent as a fault of the object or sign employed, but the person who has endea-voured to employ the sign and somehow failed to thoroughly master the ‘rules’ thatapply in its use. A couple of examples from the data illustrate this point. Wearingblack clothing is something that several respondents are divided on. Some find it asign of bad taste, others see it as stylish and elegant. One person says that wearingblack clothing is not problematic in itself, only when it is worn to a wedding. Simi-larly, a young women says that black stockings and red shoes are acceptable items ofclothing on their own, but together they are patently bad taste, presumably becausetogether they signify something greater than when worn as separate items of clothing.


Alternately, the practice of conceiving bad taste as insensitivity and selfishnessmanifested when people ignore the social needs of others, or the requirement of thesocial situation, is summed up by two female respondents. The first says that badtaste is: ‘‘a total disregard for situations and feelings of those involved and exploit-ing a situation for self gain’’, the other says more simply that bad taste is ‘‘whenyour choices make others feel uncomfortable’’. The conception of taste in terms ofpractising consideration for others is approximately equally common for both menand women, though the data suggests that men are more concerned with their tastechoices ‘fitting in’ or being ‘generally acceptable’ than women.The practice of positioning one’s personal taste within the range of acceptable

social practice is well illustrated in the spheres of manners and civility. In thissphere, good taste is imagined as showing ‘‘respect’’, ‘‘understanding’’, ‘‘caring’’,‘‘concern’’, and being ‘‘sympathetic to others feelings’’. Those who act in bad tasteare ‘‘rude’’, ‘‘abrupt’’, ‘‘arrogant’’, ‘‘attention seeking’’, ‘‘loutish’’ and ‘‘uncouth’’ intheir dealings with others. This linking of manners to taste is often part of a broaderdispositional outlook, as identified by a female respondent who says that good tasteis:

‘‘well-dressed or living in a well-designed environment, being in harmony with your surrounds and having

a well-mannered, caring attitude to yourself and your community’’.

A further way in which everyday judgements of taste exhibit an orientation toculturally acceptable modes of being can be observed when respondents invoke thenecessity of restraint or—more generally—the practice of disciplining the self as animportant component of accomplishing good taste. For example good taste is seenas ‘‘tailoring speech and actions in accord with the company and situation you arein’’, while bad taste is ‘‘introducing subjects, manners of speech, and actions ininappropriate situations and company’’. In the sphere of clothing the same dis-ciplined attunement to others is identifiable, but particularly for women, who makeup over two-thirds of those who align tastefulness with wearing matching orappropriate clothing. Many respondents who talk about clothes when explainingtaste do not report specific items of clothing as tasteful or tasteless but rather focuson the ability of a person to dress appropriately, despite the fact their personaldesire may be to dress in a manner dictated strictly by personal comfort. As thefollowing example from an older female respondent demonstrates, clothing is oftenpart of a bundle of factors included in the assessment of others’ taste credentials:good taste is ‘‘to be a neatly dressed person, have good manners and respect forother people’’, while bad taste is ‘‘loutish behaviour, to dress in garish colouredattire to seek attention, to be rude and have no respect for other people’’.The practice of discretion and self-discipline in presenting good taste has a

broader social implication that is evident in the data. People’s conceptions of goodand bad taste appear to be one way of forming the contours of social acceptabilityand the striving for what is seen as inherently ‘good’ in things. The data show thatwhat is conceived by people as tasteful or tasteless helps to manage and construct aview of themselves and also their ideal relations with others. Those aspects of social


life which are perceived as tasteful are those that are ‘‘pleasing’’, ‘‘wholesome’’,‘‘complimentary’’, and provide ‘‘satisfaction’’, ‘‘well-being’’ and ‘‘edification’’.Alternately, those perceived as being in bad taste are ‘‘demeaning’’, ‘‘degrading’’,‘‘sour’’, ‘‘devaluing’’, ‘‘destructive’’ and ‘‘nasty’’. An exemplary response of this sortdescribes good taste as ‘‘expressed through behaviour, performance or artwork doesnot cause offence but rather is edifying and pleasing and not crossing the boundariesof decency’’.

7. Conclusion

The data we present in this paper are both unique and significant. We have poin-ted out in our literature discussion that sociological studies of tastes are routinelygrounded in the study of ‘objectified’ tastes—patterns of preferences for culturalgoods such as music, art and literature. We do not seek to devalue such studies.Rather, as Mary Douglas has expressed it, the contemporary problem of taste andaesthetic choice is not so much knowing that people have unique preferences whichcan be mapped according to certain theoretical principles to form social patterns;but it ‘‘is to get at some underlying principle of discrimination’’ (Douglas, 1996: 62).By asking individuals to reflect on their personal understandings of good and badtaste, we have been able to explore the principles informing these taste logics at anindividual or subjective level—one which taps into everyday, discursive under-standings of these categories. Our analysis thus stands as an alternative to the reifi-cation of taste, manifested in aggregate patterns of cultural and aesthetic choices.Some caution in the interpretation of our results is needed. It is possible that the

respondents in our sample are more confident or able than non-respondents withattempting an open-ended, written survey question. In addition, while the form ofdata we have used could be described as qualitative and subjective, the fact that it isderived from written responses means that it precludes further checking, question-ing, and clarification. In our favour however, the form of response we have dealtwith in this paper does overcome interviewer effects, which are likely to be animportant factor in interviews about personal tastes. Additionally, written responsesof the sort we have used seem to encourage brevity, so that respondents are likely toexpress their ideas using ‘tried and true’ opinions which tap into established per-ceptual schemes of taste quite readily. Moreover, Bourdieu has argued that these areschemes which ‘‘social agents implement in their practical knowledge of the socialworld’’ (1984: 468).Our analysis of these subjective or lay understandings of taste has uncovered a

strong collective sentiment in definitions of taste, consistent with the largely over-looked themes in the classical literature on taste and fashion. Specifically, ideasrelating to interpersonal conduct and fair or honest treatment of others in everydaydealings were found to be the most commonly employed ways of explaining taste.Our data also demonstrates that negative judgements are somewhat easier to expressusing concrete, specific examples, and that recourse to collective ‘rhetorics oftaste’—as Meyer (2000) has recently labeled them in his historical analysis of taste


formation in pluralistic societies—is more common when expressing ideas about badtaste. It is, thus, possible that the cultural and aesthetic resources people use to judgevalue or worth varies according to whether they assess something as good or bad.More fundamentally, we have argued that our findings demonstrate that taste jud-gements are commonly framed as matters related to moral, ethical and communalsensibility. When invited to think about the meaning of taste, respondents generallydo not rely on identifying specific aesthetic forms as tasteful or tasteless—though thedegree to which they do will vary with age, gender and level of education as our datashow; rather, being in good taste is held to involve an attunement to others, a dis-ciplining or ‘‘tempering’’ (Miller 1993) of the self in order to ‘fit in’, and a generalrespect for other people. These data lead us to conclude, therefore, that makingjudgements of good and bad taste is not merely a distinction-seeking exercise asemulation models of taste suggest, but invokes a variety of classificatory schemesabout civility, collectiveness and acceptability which assist in the formation of con-tours of what is assessed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

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Ian Woodward is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Queensland. His current research is in the

field of consumption, taste and aesthetic judgement. His other interests include theories of post-

modernization, and urban space and symbolism. Most recently, he has published on narratives of aes-

thetic judgement and methodologies of consumption (Journal of Material Culture), consumerism and

disorientation in postmodern spaces ( The British Journal of Sociology, with Micheal Emmison and Philip

Smith), and in Architectural Theory Review, on historical changes in the discourses of shopping mall

architects.

Micheal Emmison is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Queensland. He has written

widely on cultural consumption and social class as well as the mass media and social interaction. His most

recent books are Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures, CUP 1999 (with Tony Bennett and

John Frow), and Researching The Visual, Sage 2000 (with Philip Smith). He is currently co-editor of the

Journal of Sociology and serves on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Contemporary Ethno-

graphy and Visual Communication.


Documents

From aesthetic principles to collective sentiments: The logics of everyday judgements of taste