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In a lecture at the University of Tokyo in 1989, Bourdieu describes the relational space of consumption as a space of differences where to like x is to dislike y. He proceeds with oppositions, he says, “[…] because things tend to operate in this fashion most of the time” (Bourdieu 1998: 9). In recent years, the rigidity and starkness of this way of thinking about the field of modern culture has been seriously questioned, while theoretical and empirical challenges to Bourdieu-type thinking have produced a number of alternative figures: from the cultural omnivore (Peterson and Kern 1996) to the prosumer (Ritzer, J Consum Cult 10:13–36, 2010). As far as music is concerned, a new strand of post-Bourdieusian scholarship has raised three related shortcomings. First, Bourdieu’s inability to take popular music seriously as a rich and variegated site of struggles irreducible to its “low” status (Hesmondghalgh, Media Cult Soc 28:211–231, 2006). Second, a glossing of the agency and materiality of musical works (Born Twent Century Music 2:7–36, 2005), including how they mediate or activate, rather than just reflect, identities (DeNora Music and everyday life, 2000). And third, a totalizing and inflexible view of practices and lack of careful attention both to plural dispositional processes and the sources of socio-technical change (Lahire The plural actor, 2011; Prior, Cult Sociol 2:301–319, 2008). In order to assess where we are in these debates, and to sharpen up our understanding of where they lead us, this chapter takes the figure of the amateur as its motif. It takes its cue from Hennion and Gomart’s (1999) approach to amateur attachment as a site of passions, but twists it towards the digital as a condition of possibilities for the emergence of new types of musical practice. Here, the nature of socio-cultural change associated with the advent of digital technologies—from music-making apps to Japanese “Vocaloid” cultures—requires precise description. But so, too, does the possibility that change can originate in and through the everyday practices of digitally-enabled “new” amateurs, who swarm, often without recognition, in the field of popular music. The chapter weaves together personal reflections and scholarly interventions to open up a post-Bourdieusian space that is more sensitive to 21st century problematics but does so with a sense of melancholy at Bourdieu’s “social ageing”.

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From the Heroic Modernist to the Unheroic Swarm: Bourdieu, Digital Technology and Amateur Music Production

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Nick Prior

摘要

In a lecture at the University of Tokyo in 1989, Bourdieu describes the relational space of consumption as a space of differences where to like x is to dislike y. He proceeds with oppositions, he says, “[…] because things tend to operate in this fashion most of the time” (Bourdieu 1998: 9). In recent years, the rigidity and starkness of this way of thinking about the field of modern culture has been seriously questioned, while theoretical and empirical challenges to Bourdieu-type thinking have produced a number of alternative figures: from the cultural omnivore (Peterson and Kern 1996) to the prosumer (Ritzer, J Consum Cult 10:13–36, 2010). As far as music is concerned, a new strand of post-Bourdieusian scholarship has raised three related shortcomings. First, Bourdieu’s inability to take popular music seriously as a rich and variegated site of struggles irreducible to its “low” status (Hesmondghalgh, Media Cult Soc 28:211–231, 2006). Second, a glossing of the agency and materiality of musical works (Born Twent Century Music 2:7–36, 2005), including how they mediate or activate, rather than just reflect, identities (DeNora Music and everyday life, 2000). And third, a totalizing and inflexible view of practices and lack of careful attention both to plural dispositional processes and the sources of socio-technical change (Lahire The plural actor, 2011; Prior, Cult Sociol 2:301–319, 2008). In order to assess where we are in these debates, and to sharpen up our understanding of where they lead us, this chapter takes the figure of the amateur as its motif. It takes its cue from Hennion and Gomart’s (1999) approach to amateur attachment as a site of passions, but twists it towards the digital as a condition of possibilities for the emergence of new types of musical practice. Here, the nature of socio-cultural change associated with the advent of digital technologies—from music-making apps to Japanese “Vocaloid” cultures—requires precise description. But so, too, does the possibility that change can originate in and through the everyday practices of digitally-enabled “new” amateurs, who swarm, often without recognition, in the field of popular music. The chapter weaves together personal reflections and scholarly interventions to open up a post-Bourdieusian space that is more sensitive to 21st century problematics but does so with a sense of melancholy at Bourdieu’s “social ageing”.