Genre and Autonomy in Cultural Production Copenhagen Business School Handelshøjskolen Solbjerg Plads 3 Dk-2000 Frederiksberg Danmark
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Genre and Autonomy in Cultural Production and Autonomy in Cultural Genre copenhagen business school handelshøjskolen solbjerg plads 3 dk-2000 frederiksberg danmark www.cbs.dk Genre and Autonomy in Cultural Production The case of travel guidebook production Ana Alačovska PhD Series 21.2013 ISSN 0906-6934 Print ISBN: 978-87-92977-54-0 Doctoral School of Organisation Online ISBN: 978-87-92977-55-7 and Management Studies PhD Series 21.2013 COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL GENRE AND AUTONOMY IN CULTURAL PRODUCTION THE CASE OF TRAVEL GUIDEBOOK PRODUCTION Ana Alacovska 3/14/2013 Ana Alačovska Genre and Autonomy in Cultural Production The case of travel guidebook production 1st edition 2013 PhD Series 21.2013 © The Author ISSN 0906-6934 Print ISBN: 978-87-92977-54-0 Online ISBN: 978-87-92977-55-7 The Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies (OMS) is an interdisciplinary research environment at Copenhagen Business School for PhD students working on theoretical and empirical themes related to the organisation and management of private, public and voluntary organizations. All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................................................... 5 PRELUDE ............................................................................................................................................................ 7 The story of a rogue travel guidebook writer .................................................................................................... 7 Travel guidebooks: a lowly genre and hack writers .................................................................................... 12 Travel guidebooks: reference publishing .................................................................................................... 13 In the wake of the scandal of the factual genre .......................................................................................... 14 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 16 The place and role of genres in cultural production: an intellectual Odyssey ............................................ 16 Hermeneutics: genres as production categories that mediate authorial action .................................... 18 Reception studies: genre-bound productivity of reception .................................................................... 28 ‘Cultural industries approach’: the study of creative labour (and genres) ............................................. 33 Sociology of culture/cultural sociology: the shifting causality of genres ................................................ 38 From ‘a hermeneutic sociology of art’ and ‘sociological hermeneutics’ to ‘structuralist hermeneutics’ 46 Genres matter: the interpretive approach to media production ............................................................ 63 Conclusion: genres as an analytical category .......................................................................................... 72 Methodological approach ........................................................................................................................... 76 Formal properties: identifying genre dominants .................................................................................... 76 Life story interviews ................................................................................................................................ 77 ‘Fieldwork on foot’ while ‘thinking aloud’ ............................................................................................... 79 Paratextual analysis ................................................................................................................................. 82 CHAPTER 1 ....................................................................................................................................................... 83 CULTURAL PRODUCTION: THREE PARADIGMS ................................................................................................ 83 The ‘grand tradition’ of cultural production ............................................................................................... 83 Sociological paradigm of cultural production: fields and art worlds........................................................... 86 ‘A good player’ and ‘good work’: practical mastery ................................................................................ 90 Negligence of the cultural object ............................................................................................................ 96 Anthropological paradigm of cultural production ..................................................................................... 100 Empirical study of genres ...................................................................................................................... 104 Socio-cultural analysis: generative legacy of Adorno and Williams .......................................................... 108 Adorno: musico-technical approach ..................................................................................................... 108 Williams: social formalism and cultural materialism............................................................................. 111 Adorno-Williams: ‘positive mediation’ .................................................................................................. 113 2 CHAPTER 2 ..................................................................................................................................................... 116 GENRE IN ACTION .......................................................................................................................................... 116 The idea of culture as a ‘tool-kit’ for action .............................................................................................. 116 The genre takes the lead ........................................................................................................................... 120 Effectiveness of genres: genres as an institution ...................................................................................... 122 Genres as tools and resources: enacting genre worlds ............................................................................. 127 Genre as a set of affordances .................................................................................................................... 131 Genre’s properties: dominants or the laws of the genre .......................................................................... 136 The methodological import ....................................................................................................................... 137 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 140 CHAPTER 3 ..................................................................................................................................................... 142 PROPERTIES OF THE GENRE: GENRE DOMINANTS ........................................................................................ 142 Non-Fictionality: factuality or reference to actuality ................................................................................ 145 Didacticity: emancipatory role or performativity ...................................................................................... 152 The dominants and production practice ................................................................................................... 157 CHAPTER 4 ..................................................................................................................................................... 159 GENERIFICATION OF THE INDUSTRY, INSTITUTIONALISATION OF THE GENRE............................................. 159 Paratextual analysis: betwixt and between .............................................................................................. 160 Industrial self-reflexivity as genre-enabled self-definition .................................................................... 162 Whose origins? .......................................................................................................................................... 163 Institutionalising the genre: proto-genres and the publishing industry ............................................... 164 Mediating power of genres: the myth of origin .................................................................................... 169 The constitutive modus operandi of the genre ......................................................................................... 174 The vow to ‘perfect accuracy’: an implicit contract .............................................................................. 176 From douceur to quid-pro-quo ............................................................................................................. 191 Performativity: the infelicity of the genre ............................................................................................. 193 From guide-book publishers