CfP: European Journal of Cultural Studies - Special Issue

European Journal of Cultural Studies - Special Issue

**Submission Deadline: 31st December 2010**

Cultural Intermediaries in Context:
Locating Identity and Practice in the Formation of Value

Guest Co-Editors: Jennifer Smith Maguire (University of Leicester); Julian Matthews
(University of Leicester)

There has been an increase in research around cultural intermediaries in recent years,
jumping off from Special Issues in Cultural Studies in 2002, and Consumption, Markets
and Culture in 2004. This Special Issue is intended to move the field forward by
foregrounding the issue of context: how does location (across and within cultural
fields; across and within societies; across and within time periods) impact on the
identities and practices of cultural intermediaries? The Special Issue will offer a
timely collection that examines the present understanding of the cultural intermediary,
and the materiality of their cultural work in the formation of value.

The operations of cultural intermediaries in commodity chains have developed as a recent
focus of attention for the sociology of culture and cultural studies. Rooted in the work
of Bourdieu (1984), and taken up within discussions of a radically new stage of
capitalism (e.g. Featherstone 1991; Lash & Urry 1987), cultural intermediaries have more
recently been the focus of a range of studies loosely grouped under the banner of
'cultural economy' (e.g. du Gay and Pryke, 2002). This body of research has examined the
role of cultural intermediaries in mediating between the production and consumption of
cultural goods, and their place more generally within the organization of economic and
cultural life. However, attention to cultural intermediaries' identities and lifestyles
has yet to be fully integrated with close investigation of their material practices of
mediation. Furthermore, research has thus far focused largely on single case studies of
occupations, despite the clear significance of cultural location and context for the
formation of value-for example, at different stages within the 'career' (Méadel and
Rabeharisoa 2001) of a product, or for the same occupation operating within different
fields. Thus, the interconnections of various intermediaries operating in and across
various fields, and how such cultural work can be conceptualised generally remain
fertile areas for further study, discussion and debate.

Empirically-grounded contributions might consider a range of issues including, but not
confined to:
.       theoretical conceptualizations of the cultural intermediary and the intersection
of identity and practice (including the tensions and synergies present in definitions of
the cultural intermediary and their work, as offered by Bourdieu and later cultural
economy studies);
.       the role of context (including education, patterns of professionalization, class
habitus) in the formation of cultural intermediary 'dispositions' and the tensions that
arise between objective credentials and subjective dispositions, intuition, aesthetic
sensibilities and so forth in the performance of authority;
.       the role of cultural location in the selection and deployment of 'devices' for
the formation of value (including the specific, material practices involved in bringing
goods to market, identifying (with) and understanding the intended market, performing
credibility-for themselves and their goods-via the mobilization of different forms of
capital, and so forth);
.       the ecology of cultural intermediaries within commodity chains (the 'regimes of
mediation' (Cronin 2004), and the status, relative weight and interconnections of
cultural intermediaries operating within the same and across fields);
.       cross-cultural comparisons of cultural intermediaries operating within the same
field, and cross-field comparisons of cultural intermediaries operating at comparable
positions in different commodity chains (calling attention to the relative universality,
or cultural- or field- specificity, of particular forms of value and their production);
.       comparisons of cultural intermediaries operating in the same field, but working
with goods that occupy different status positions (calling attention to the question of
autonomy for those working with goods of restricted production compared with those
working with goods of mass production).

Submissions:

The deadline for papers is 31st December 2010.

If you have any queries regarding the suitability of your potential contribution please
contact either of the guest co-editors:
Jennifer Smith Maguire jbs7 AT le.ac.uk
Julian Matthews jpm29 AT le.ac.uk

Submissions should be sent electronically as Word documents to Jennifer Smith Maguire
(email: jbs7 AT le.ac.uk). If this is not possible, then please send five copies to
Jennifer Smith Maguire, Department of Media & Communication, University of Leicester,
University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.

Papers, in English, should include an abstract of 100-150 words, with a suggested target
of about 7000 words (including notes and references). For specific manuscript submission
guidelines, please go to:
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journalsProdManSub.nav?prodId=Journal200898&crossRegion=antiPod