Consumption and Communities of Aesthetic Practice

The paper contributes to discussions of the construction of consumption as aesthetic practice (Charters, 2006; Venkatesh & Meamber, 2006, 2008). After Bourdieu (1990) it positions such practice as ‘regulated improvisations’, situated within communities of consumption practice. It explores this idea in the context of music-making as identity work, framing 'music' as ‘culture in the making’, as aesthetic accomplishment in social and material context (Wallendorf, 1980). The presentation illustrates these themes through discourse and musical performance. It reworks aesthetic practice as structuring dispositions, drawing attention to the embodied features of listening as shared aesthetic consumption (Joy & Sherry, 2003). Through performing an empirical site for observing dispositions, it reveals how games of distinction and local art-world knowledge (Becker, 1974) work to produce consumption community.

Citation:

Douglas Brownlie (2011) ,"Consumption and Communities of Aesthetic Practice", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 83-84.