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<p>Since its discovery in the 1990s, cultural omnivorousness has arguably become the most extensively researched empirical topic in the sociology of culture. This paper argues that its prominence stems from its status as the major anomaly facing the dominant theoretical program of the field: Bourdieusian sociology of cultural reproduction. Much of Bourdieu’s theorizing rests on what can be described as an emulation game model, in which elite groups choose tastes as signals for self-identification based on their inaccessibility to non-elite groups, thereby creating a cultural homology. Yet in the case of omnivorousness, elites appear to display preferences that non-elites can readily imitate. The efforts to reconcile omnivorousness with the emulation game imagery have driven much of the field’s theoretical development. These efforts have taken three principal forms, each offering an alternative to the implicit understanding of cultural consumption as the deciphering of complex codes prevalent in Bourdieu’s writings: the cultural repertoire thesis (where competence is defined by mastery of diverse vocabularies), the classification game thesis (where cultural capital lies in the ability to draw increasingly refined distinctions), and the countersignaling thesis (where higher status is expressed through the ostentatious refusal to signal). All three responses allow one to argue that a revised and more complex version of cultural homology still exists.</p>

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Theorizing omnivorousness: the cultural reproduction thesis and elite consumption of lowbrow culture

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月22日

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  • Mikhail Sokolov

摘要

Since its discovery in the 1990s, cultural omnivorousness has arguably become the most extensively researched empirical topic in the sociology of culture. This paper argues that its prominence stems from its status as the major anomaly facing the dominant theoretical program of the field: Bourdieusian sociology of cultural reproduction. Much of Bourdieu’s theorizing rests on what can be described as an emulation game model, in which elite groups choose tastes as signals for self-identification based on their inaccessibility to non-elite groups, thereby creating a cultural homology. Yet in the case of omnivorousness, elites appear to display preferences that non-elites can readily imitate. The efforts to reconcile omnivorousness with the emulation game imagery have driven much of the field’s theoretical development. These efforts have taken three principal forms, each offering an alternative to the implicit understanding of cultural consumption as the deciphering of complex codes prevalent in Bourdieu’s writings: the cultural repertoire thesis (where competence is defined by mastery of diverse vocabularies), the classification game thesis (where cultural capital lies in the ability to draw increasingly refined distinctions), and the countersignaling thesis (where higher status is expressed through the ostentatious refusal to signal). All three responses allow one to argue that a revised and more complex version of cultural homology still exists.