Reports Compiled by Manning Zhang

Panel: “Culture in Organizations and Markets”

Organized by Anna Woźny (Princeton University and University of Tokyo)

The study of culture in organizations and markets has become a vibrant area of sociological inquiry in recent years. This panel showcased five examples of cutting-edge work in this heterogenous field with papers chosen to reflect its breadth, different theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as diverse empirical settings, often outside the U.S. Together, these diverse papers elucidated different dimensions of how cultural processes operate in organizational and market(ized) contexts and how such contexts, in turn, influence cultural practices and meaning making, both collective and individual. 

In the first paper, Nina Teresa Kiderlin and Shirin Barol (Geneva Graduate Institute) traced shifting classificatory systems within the American Sociological Association. Marshalling an impressive range of archival data since the 1960s, they showed how the ASA has been gradually divided into specialized sections and how individuals responded to this specialization in creative ways. The next two papers examined cultural production in different organizational contexts and across different national settings. Drawing on a case study of an intermediary agency in China’s influencer industry, Zepeng Zhou (Emory University) demonstrated how the agency attempted to control the creative process. Zhou identified three stages of dependence producing, boundary blurring, and creativity balancing through which the creative process was shaped by organizational actors. Working in a different field of cultural production, the art cinema curatorship, Tania Aparicio (Teachers College at Columbia University) compared the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) film department in New York City and Cineteca Nacional (National Film Center) in Mexico City. She identified two models of curatorship—one which attempted to shape the boundaries of the field, and another which sought to democratize access to the art cinema. Finally, two papers focused on culture and decision-making within markets and organizations. Based on an analysis of fieldwork with homebirth midwives and informal money transfer agents, Liora O Goldensher (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) and Gözde Güran (Georgetown University) elucidated an innovative theoretical approach to discretion. And Gabriel Abend (University of Lucerne) and colleagues discussed preliminary findings from their investigation of AIs as morally responsible decision-makers. 

Panel: ‘Culture in interactions’

Organized by Tomas Gold (University of Notre Dame)

Originally thought of as a tribute to Howard Becker, this session focused on discussing new conceptual developments to explain how culture informs social interactions. While sociologists have crafted a vast conceptual arsenal to elucidate how relations among individuals unfold (such as labeling, role performance, schematic representations, cultural styles, field positions, or imagined futures) the discussions of such concepts often remained siloed and disconnected from one another. The five papers selected for this panel propose innovative approaches to advance this agenda by bridging subfields, levels of analysis, and different social contexts. 

The analyses centered on how people personify institutions and perceive them as actors capable of interacting with them across legal and religious communities (Carly Knight & Jeffrey Guhin), the strategies that privileged students use to enhance and cultivate their visibility on social media to ease their transition to college (Michelle Rabaut), the role of civic associations in politically articulating stigma within post-conflict settings in Colombia (Nicolas Torres-Echeverry), the strategies employed by organizations advocating for Muslim inclusion to advance full cultural membership and the challenges faced in the racialized American culture (Valentina Cantori), and the deliberations of actors invested in imagining possible futures for their national communities across global “scenario projects” (Ann Mische, Wesley Hedden, and Pedro Pontes).

I selected these papers because they reflect the breadth of cultural sociology today and address the problem of studying culture in social interactions in creative ways. Despite their seemingly diverse objects of analysis, reading them collectively revealed three issues that seem relevant for the discipline: the fact that imagined interactions are anchored in specific organizational contexts, the difficulties actors face in generating meaningful social change, and the new insights sociologists might gain from connecting micro and macro levels of analysis.

Whether by interacting with personified institutions that morally authorize their actions (Knight & Guhin), curating Instagram posts on summer holidays to preemptively cultivate social capital (Rabaut), or collectively discussing various possible futures for a young democratic community (Mische et al.), the papers demonstrate that people intervene in the world by imagining how others will perceive and react to their actions. How they do so, however, is shaped by the organizational contexts in which these (imagined or physical) interactions take place. As Cantori and Torres-Echeverry also explore in depth, the affordances of specific platforms and spaces are crucial in shaping how civic associations are perceived and reacted to. Some locations, such as the global sites of “hyper-projectivity” described by Mische et al., are even designed to probe collective imagination in specific ways. I appreciated how all the papers utilized comparative designs to elucidate how these contextual differences shape interactions in significant ways.

Most papers also illustrate the challenges actors face when interacting to effect social change. This was most apparent in the analyses of civic associations, which demonstrated that organizing to overcome social stigma (Torres-Echeverry) or advance the cultural membership of racialized communities (Cantori) presents activists with structural challenges that can easily foster divisions among them, undermining their efforts. This issue was also indirectly present in the other papers, which show that social interactions are more readily built to authorize and enhance one’s own position than to challenge it. This is evident in Rabaut’s study of how students engage in “visibility work” on Instagram to enhance their online social capital before entering college, and in Knight & Guhin’s analysis of how lawyers and religious educators agentify institutions to establish ongoing relationships that structure their moral order. Furthermore, Mische et al. demonstrate that even within sites designed for deliberative thinking, some rhetorical devices are introduced to resolve substantive dilemmas that could otherwise lead to significant disagreements and defeat the organizers’ objectives. 

Finally, most papers creatively combine different types of data, allowing their authors to navigate between the analysis of micro social dynamics and macro structures. While this strategy is not new in sociological research, its masterful application in such varied projects is certainly rare and noteworthy. Mische et al. select two events in Kenya and Colombia from a major database on global scenario projects to elaborate on the discursive patterns underlying political-normative assessments of competing public goods. Cantori and Torres-Echeverry meticulously analyze ethnographic and interview data to explain how civic associations navigate the exclusion of social groups in racialized and conflict-ridden countries, tracing how these associations’ internal debates are ultimately rooted in—and traversed by—structural nationwide problems. Lastly, Rabaut and Knight & Guhin examine how cultivated online profiles and imagined interactions have a strong performative effect on people’s everyday lives. These two ingenious papers illuminate how seemingly micro interactions significantly shape individuals’ trajectories within powerful institutions, advancing discussions on several subfields at once. 

Overall, this panel highlighted the creativity of contemporary scholars researching social interactions across diverse contexts and perspectives. I hope they continue advancing this agenda in the years to come.

Panel: ‘Culture in Objects’

Organized by Jun Fang (Colby College)

Culture permeates every aspect of life but is particularly embodied in objects. Over the past two to three decades, there has been a growing interest in studying objects within cultural sociology. Wendy Griswold’s definition of cultural objects as “shared significance embodied in form” provides a useful framework for analyzing a wide range of objects, from material culture to symbols, ideas, and media content. This panel featured five exciting papers that explored various cultural objects, including franchises and TV shows, YouTube content production, antiracist books, historic Chinatowns, and on-demand oil paintings.

Two main themes emerged from the presentations and the engaging discussions that followed. The first theme focused on the interplay between cultural objects and their agents, whether producers or receivers. In their theoretical paper on cultural objects’ contaminating dualities, Michael Lee Wood and Travis Daichi Ashby examined how cultural objects maintain a complex relationship with their creators and fans. For example, they discussed how J.K. Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter franchise and an outspoken opponent of transgender rights, has negatively impacted fans’ relationships with the franchise. Similarly, Matt Rafalow’s study on YouTube content creation highlighted how audiences can shape video content. He examined how different audience subgroups—superfans, subscribers and non-subscriber viewers, and potential viewers—impact content creators’ strategies, as these creators must adapt to audience expectations and feedback.

The second theme addressed the cultural power of objects and their ability to shape beliefs, behaviors, and identities. This renewed interest in cultural power goes beyond the traditional emphasis on symbolic power, instead highlighting how the materiality and aesthetic properties of cultural objects influence meaning-making processes and motivate actions. Daniel Cueto-Villalobos’s research showed that popular novels on racial justice and antiracism play a complex role in shaping white identity. While reading antiracist books can foster a progressive white identity, it may also diminish the urgency for antiracist action. Mojtaba Rostami and Matt Patterson’s study of historic Chinatowns in North America focused on how the physical locations and built environments of these Chinatowns influence young Chinese Canadians and Americans’ narratives of Chinese exclusion and their processing of cultural trauma. In his research on on-demand oil painting production in Dafen, China, Jiayi Tian turned to the aesthetic experiences of painters interacting with their work. The aesthetic conflict between the reproduction art world and the painters’ own preferences motivated them to transform their careers. In their theoretical piece, Wood and Ashby further argued that the contamination of a cultural object and its diffusion constitute a potent source of cultural power, prompting responses from affected agents that motivate and direct action. 

This well-attended session attested the promise of studying culture through objects and demonstrated how this approach can effectively advance multiple theories within cultural sociology. For a deeper understanding of cultural objects and their materiality, Terence E. McDonnell’s 2013 article in the Annual Review of Sociology is highly recommended.

Summary of Roundtables

Organized by Claire Penty Sieffert, Kevin Kiley, Parker Muzzerall

In an essay called “Being Taken for Granite,” author Ursula K. Le Guin is clear that she should not be taken for granite, that solid, ever-unchanging rock that steadfastly rejects footprints left by others. Instead, Le Guin wants to be taken for mud, where passersby leave footprints, where there is the possibility of being changed by others. Conferences too ask us to be like mud, to open up our work to others so they can leave footprints, feedback, thoughts, questions. In turn, our work can leave footprints in others’ thinking about their own work. Nowhere is that more true than in roundtables, where the whole point is to show up with work in progress and walk through it with others.

This year’s sociology of culture roundtables definitely embodied that principle. The word “generative” is often thrown around in sociology, and we heard after the roundtables that many conversations were deeply generative thanks to the room full of presiders and participants who chewed on ideas together. Isn’t generating ideas in others also generating footprints? For Le Guin, mud is generative, unlike immutable rock.

Roundtables are also a reminder that sociology of culture is one of the most far-ranging sections. This year, there were tables on everything from material objects to cultural production to intersectional identities to morality and evaluation. That’s not even getting into the wide range of cases within each of these topics, topics that are broad by necessity but don’t capture the nuance of the work that people are doing within them. All told, it makes for a far-reaching landscape of ideas under construction through which to walk, and we want to thank everyone who joined us in doing that.