Contextualising Cultural Participation

Abstract

This chapter contextualises cultural participation as one of the three dimensions of cultural practices. It first discusses cultural participation as a positional good and as a vehicle of social exclusion. The chapter then introduces some of the main contributions arguing that the highbrow-oriented culture could be losing its distinctive value—most importantly, the discussions on the ‘rise of the omnivore’ and the ‘meltdown scenario’. This chapter also summarises the research on the cultural practices of different underprivileged classes. It is argued that moral boundaries are an important means for underprivileged classes to defend their worth in a scenario of ‘lacking’ cultural or economic resources. Finally, this chapter shows that public cultural policy serves as an important tool for validating specific kinds of cultural participation.