Learning to labour unequally: understanding the relationship between cultural production, cultural consumption and inequality

ABSTRACT

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts, particularly in the UK. Whilst there is a wealth of work on traditional areas of inequality, such as those associated with income or gender, the relationship between culture, specifically cultural value, and inequality is comparatively under-researched.

The article considers inequality and cultural value from two points of view: how cultural value is consumed and how it is produced. The paper argues that these two activities are absolutely essential to understanding the relationship between culture and social inequality, but that the two activities have traditionally been considered separately in both academic research and public policy, despite the importance of culture to British and thus international policy agendas. The article uses the example of higher education in the UK to think through the relationship between cultural consumption and production. In doing, so the article maps out a productive possibility for a new research agenda, by sketching where and how research might link cultural consumption and production to better understand inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• Inequality
• social class
• cultural production
• cultural consumption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A UK crime drama serial about the work of a fictional criminal psychologist played by Robbie Coltrane, which ran from 1993–1995.

2. A TV drama series about the residents of fictional street in Manchester, UK, which was broadcast on the BBC from 2006–2009.

3. A liberal arts college based in London, which has played a central role in the UK's musical and visual culture.

4. The 2010 Equality Act defines nine ‘protected’ characteristics (age, race, gender reassignment, disability, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, religious belief, gender and sexual orientation), but not social class.