IMPACTOS Y EFECTOS SOBRE LAS INFRAESTRUCTURAS CRÍTICAS ENERGÉTICAS

The previous sections of this chapter introduce the findings of visitor surveys in China and the main theoretical and conceptual mechanisms of sociological studies in the field of cultural production and consumption (the homology, omnivore-univore and individualisation arguments). The previous sections also describe the challenges of employing these mutually contradictive analytical frameworks in understand ing Chinese visitors to the observed exhibitions. Based on the literature review, there is no sufficient evidence of the reliability and efficiency of these theoretical frameworks in understanding Chinese visitors' perceptions of the contemporary artworks in these exhibitions. Thus, in order to prevent the bias of over-reliance on a single theoretica l solution to understand 'the multifaceted and multi-layered nature of cultural identities' of the visitors, the current study will prioritise exploring 'cultural profiles' (Hanquinet 2013: 14) among the visitors, based on their cultural preferences and aesthetic knowledge. Many scholars have acknowledged the efficiency and the flexibility of this strategy for understanding the complexity and the multidimensionality of individua ls' cultural tastes in different countries (e.g. Bennett et al. 2009; Hanquinet 2013; Falk 2001). The three sets of research that I have identified are those produced by Falk in the USA, by Bennett in the United Kingdom, and by Hanquinet in Belgium. All three researchers identify that the explanatory power of class-driven boundaries has declined in the field of cultural consumption in their respective countries. Thus, the following sections introduce the three studies and the theoretical and methodological issues that threaten the validity of their findings.

3.4.1 A critical review of Falk’s research

111

Unlike many sociologists and social researchers who believe that the museum going activities of exhibition participants are highly related to one’s social status in terms of education, income, family milieu, etc. (Bourdieu 1999; Bennett 2001), John H. Falk (1995) claims that variables such as ‘community, marital status, age, education, income and church’ could impact the decision-making process of individual to go to museums, but, what he notices is that no single factor listed above could ‘reliably predict’ the presence of targeting community members. For instance, Falk also notices that even the visitor’s race/ethnicity can influence the spectator’s museum going decision making process, but it provides a ‘poor explanation for museum-going’ like other demographic figures (2009:29).

In his later book, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (2012), Falk suggests that we should stop thinking about visitors in terms of ‘some permanent quality or attribute such as age or race/ethnicity’, but rather consider each museum participant ‘a unique individual’, an individual who can generate various distinguishable and changeable visiting experiences. For example, based on visitors’ ‘current identity-related visit motivations’, which refer to short-term personal, identity-related needs and interests, exhibition participants can even generate significantly different meanings toward the same exhibition or exhibit (2001:497).

Within Falk’s account, there are two separate forms of identity: the ‘big I identity’ (the

112

demographic qualities of individuals, namely gender, nationality, religion and racial/ethnic identity), and the ‘little I identity’ – the reaction that an individual has toward ‘the needs and realities of the specific moment and situation’. Compared to the big I identity, Falk believes that the little I Identity of visitors is more effective at revealing the internal detective factors that drive exhibition participants’ everyday activities and thoughts, and which perform better in understanding museum attendees ’ visiting motivations, attitudes, reactions and perceptions toward exhibitions or exhibits (Falk 2001:298).

What makes Falk’s claim problematic is that when he writes about everyday practices and thoughts, he tends to simplify all kinds of requirements that an agent has in a simple and unitary form, rather than distinguishing them in terms of one’s intrinsic requirements and cultural needs (which could be highly symbolised). Hence, one might also argue that the ignorance of the multiple characters of the agent’s need might lead to one failing to notice the cultural exclusivity of cultural institutions and cultural works (Bourdieu 1994), and the power relationship between the cultural field and society (Foucault 1995; Bennett 2001; Bourdieu 2001; Fyfe 2000). The relationship between unequal cultural competencies and cultural dispositions that individuals have towards the perception of cultural goods, and the importance of the long-term familiarity process with the art works (Bennett 1993; Bourdieu 2001) objectively exist in our social space and imply the ‘level of satisfaction’ that one can achieve (Maslow 1994). For example, Falk might underestimate the impact that the feeling of frustration has on visitors. Once museum visitors feel frustrated within the exhibiting space, they may stop trying to engage with the art works (Hooper-Greenhill 1999). Bourdieu believes that if the

113

information conveyed by the art work is found to be too ‘overwhelming’, the visitor who failed to decipher it will consider the art work as a ‘medley without rhyme or reason, or a completely unnecessary set of sounds or colours’ (2001:51). They may, at times, even feel ‘a sort of panic mingled with revolt’ (2001:60). As a result, without considering exhibition participants’ demographic characters, which are closely related to the matters mentioned above, the question of how researchers can catalogue, measure and predict the activities of museum visitors may remain unsolved.

Second, Falk believes that the unstable relationship between museum visitors and their host institutions is based on a kind of coincidence or what Falk calls ‘the current identity-related visitor motivations’, which are ‘a reflection and reaction to both the social and physical world we consciously perceive in the moment’ (1999:5). One might argue that the analysis model used by Falk is a sort of constructionist stance. In order to explain the definition of constructionism in the field of museology, Eilean Hooper-Greenhill in her article, ‘Museum Learners as Active Postmodernists: Contextualiz ing Constructivism’, notes that constructionists tend to treat museum visitors as individ ua ls with ‘their own particular needs, preferred learning styles and social and cultura l agendas’, rather than a ‘passive, homogeneous mass of people’ (1999:27). Hein agrees with Hooper-Greenhill and submits that ‘we need to focus on the visitor, not the content of the museum’ (1999:78). However, even though the constructionist theories of communication and learning are becoming increasingly popular in the field of museum studies and welcomed by museologists (Hooper-Greenhill 1999:67), one might claim that the weaknesses of constructionism still exist and threaten its reliability. The reason for this argument is that if the visitor’s museum going is exclusively determined by the identity-related motivation/little I identity, identifying the factors that

114

construct/formulate the identity-related motivations/little I identity might pose an issue for researchers. If an individual’s cultural and social status/profile contribute to these individual characteristics or personalities, one can also argue that the big I identities of museum visitors decide the motivations, perceptions, and reactions of visitors toward museums; thus, the argument will, paradoxically, fall into an infinite theoretic loop. My research will try to disentangle motivations and social attributes (e.g. age, gender, education and occupational class) of the contemporary art museum visitors.

Third, in the field of cultural studies, due to the constructionist model that Falk pursues, the simplistic relationship between agent and cultural activities might lead to biased research. Even Falk does not deny the impact of one’s cultural background, particula rly race/ethnicity, towards a visitor’s museum going behaviour, but he insists that this difference cannot sufficiently explain the different cultural tendencies among the residents of a host country and the ethnic minority community members. The main example that Falk uses to support this point of view is that, as the data reveals in his research conducted in America, the attitude of African-Americans toward leisure activities is similar to that of European-Americans, while at the same time, the

‘tremendous differences’ can be found within and across the African communities’

(2001:378). What might make Falk’s claim problematic is that he tends to fit all visitors who have different cultural backgrounds into a single formula. In her article, Ainisa (1994) highlights the multiple meanings that the term ‘ethnicity’ contains, and also notes that the tendency of cultural institutions to adopt an understanding for all visitors with different cultural backgrounds using a ‘formulation’ (such as ethnic minority) will generate ‘much more devastating effects’ on the developing of their inclusive policies.

Without noticing the changeable, flexible and fuzzy nature of cultural differences, one

115

might be risking ‘caging individuals into involuntary associations’ (Ibid: 2). In addition, Falk’s research methods and results might mislead readers by overly focusing on race/ethnicity as identities in their own right, rather than the shared cultural or collective identities of members of ethnic minorities. In Falk’s 1999 article, he refuses to admit the profound influence that ethnicity has on his research, which can also mean that he denied the strong relationship between minority community members’ cultura l backgrounds and their museum going motivations. Bennett notes that the thicker historic frame one nation has, the more difficult it will be for its members to engage and overcome these cultural boundaries (1992:31). Bourdieu (1999) also believes that the process of breaking up the old means of art perception and establishing new art decoding mechanisms is significantly slow. In order to ‘uproot’ a type of art competence which is ‘deeply implanted in habits and memories’ and replace it with a new one, individuals need to experience a long and difficult familiarisation process with the new coding schemes of the recently established/engaged art forms. As a result, I argue that the focus in the field of empirical museum visitor research should be the influences of the participants’ various cultural differences toward their perceptions and reception of art works, museums, art galleries and exhibitions, which has not been fully explored by social researchers. In this respect, one might argue that Falk’s constructionist model of analysis can be deemed as an effective tool in revealing the intersectional forces to which museum visitors are subjected.

Finally, the issue of Falk’s research finding is similar to that achieved by Bennett et al.

(2009). First, the question of how to measure the duration of the contact that the member of the ethnic minority community has with the local ‘legitimate culture’ or ‘mainstre a m culture’ is not addressed in his research. In addition, if Falk considers African-America n

116

people as native residents (who probably know American culture as well as European-Americans), but not immigrants (who come from a region with extremely divergent cultures and religions), the effectiveness of this analysis model will be challenged since the cultural differences and the cultural boundaries objectively exist among differe nt societies, especially between Western and Eastern countries. This might mislead readers to explore an issue that actually does not exist – namely, the physical and mental differences between races.

3.4.2 Bennett’s social research

Bennett et al. (2009) creatively extend Bourdieu’s cultural framework in their research in Britain. In terms of the relationship between culture and ethnicity (I am focusing on the national culture that one bears in a transnational context as a member of an ethnic group and the effects of this on his or her cultural practices), they highlight the strong relationship between cultural capital and the sense of belonging of social members, and the complex way that ethnicity is connected with cultural activities. However, Bennett et al. also admitted that they failed to establish a strong relationship between migra nt communities (cultural differences) and the organisations of the host country’s cultura l lifestyles (2009:237). There are several factors that make their research problematic. In the first place, Bennett et al. simplify the profile complexity of the ethnic group member components into a series of paired groups, in terms of born in Britain/born in other countries, white English/white other, and white/non-white. In their research, they neglected the duration that immigrants/ethnic community members have been in the United Kingdom. As per the close relationship between cultural competence and the familiarity process mentioned at the beginning of this thesis, the efficiency of an agent’s

117

capability to decipher certain kinds of works of art is largely determined by the frequency of contact with the works (Bourdieu 2012). Thus, the attitude that immigra nts have towards the consumption of cultural works might be misunderstood. Therefore, the research findings may be biased due to the insufficiently comparative research data collected.

Second, in Bennett et al.’s research, immigrant group members are being challenged by the knowledge of western cultural productions (literary items, music items, visual art items, etc.) (2009:246). Interviewees who participate in the research may feel confused due to the fact that they are being asked to make a choice based on their knowledge of marginal/ foreign/unfamiliar cultures (compared to their indigenous culture). As a result, they may refuse/resist/feel embarrassed to present their real considerations, which may also reduce the reliability of the research findings, especially when the research could not measure the duration that the interviewees have lived in the western countries.

Laurie Hanquinet’s research method (2013) could effectively solve this issue by reorganising visitors through various visitor cultural profiles, which will be analysed later.

Lastly, Bennett et al. believe that the reason why younger immigrant interviewees, especially those who received higher education, can ‘display considerable sophistication and reflexivity in their handling of cultural categories and genres’ is because ‘their experiences as minority group members have, to some degree, forced them to reflect on processes of categorisation and classification, thus developing cultural capacities that allow them to navigate between cultural referents with considerable subtlety’ (Ibid:250). One might argue that, in order to get involved with

118

local society and to structure their own social networks with local inhabitants, young immigrants might force themselves to engage with indigenous cultures. However, this claim might similarly need to take the risk of being critiqued as a kind of determinism or cultural relativism, since there are many other factors that might contribute to this phenomena, such as young immigrants’ stronger study abilities due to their young age;

they may be less formed and institutionalised by the legitimate cultural environme nt where they or their parents came from; and they may have been more influenced by globalisation compared to their older generations, so they present less resistance towards western culture.

3.4.3 Hanquinet’s research in Belgium

For Hanquinet, the class-based and highly homogeneous visitor groups in Bourdieu et al.’s The Love of Art will significantly restrict one in fully acknowledging visitors’

dynamic forms of engagement with art and culture and their life trajectories (2013:14).

By highlighting how ‘a more general lifestyle beyond socio-demographic characteristics’ or what Hanquinet called ‘cultural profile’ can be used to ‘interpret the ways visitors of art museums define their relationship to art and to culture and, consequently, to the art museum’, Hanquinet suggests that visiting a museum should be considered as a ‘particular life choice’ which ‘cannot be grasped through solely the Bourdieusian cultural legitimacy framework’ (2013:17). More specifically in her article, Mondrian as Kitchen Tiles? Artistic and Cultural Conceptions of Art Museum Visitors in Belgium (2013), Hanquinet identifies six different kinds of cultural profiles from the visitors she monitored within the research: the classically cultured visitors (highly educated visitors who prefer highbrow culture and do not like most forms of

avant-119

garde art and popular art); the cultured progressists (namely, younger visitors who resist classical art forms and tend to engage with less legitimate works of art); the Distants (less educated visitors who prefer operettas, but not contemporary art forms and highbrow culture); the passive cultured visitors (less interested by ordinary cultura l activities and legitimate cultural activities, with more than half possessing a bachelor degree); the hedonists (most visitors in this group have higher educational certificatio ns, are rare museum visitors and do not like either classical art or contemporary art); the art lovers (referring to visitors who like all art forms, 44-64 years old and who have received artistic training).

Hanquinet provides a more efficient research framework for decoding the complexity of a continually developing modern culture. However, as Hanquinet argues, the research results might be restricted by the limited number of interviews per group (Ibid:

27). In addition, this research framework may need to be applied in different cultura l contexts where the efficiency of cultural profiles could be tested. More specifica lly, during the research survey the present researcher will explore whether Hanquinet ’s social framework is more effective than the one Bourdieu et al. utilised in understand ing Chinese contemporary art museum visitors.

In summary, based on the available literature, the present researcher explored whether Chinese visitors, as subjects of intersecting social (age, gender, class, generation) and cultural forces (local and international cultural norms), will utilise different interpretive strategies to engage with institutions and cultural norms dominated by Western ideology (as Bourdieu et al. expected). This chapter also discussed whether ‘cultura l profiles’ will be effective in understanding the cultural distinction in present-day China.

120

Based on Hanquinet’s research findings, which highlight the close relationship between an individual’s personal life and his or her understanding of art, culture and museums, the researcher also introduced the possible influences of dramatic cultural changes towards Chinese contemporary art visitors’ culturally contextualised perception and reception of contemporary artworks and their host institutions - museums.

Based on the previous analysis of Falk, Bennett, and Hanquinet’s research, I have identified that a mixed-methods approach to visitor research will best suit my research objectives in China. Hanquinet’s use of cluster analysis in particular seems effective in identifying integrated cultural taste, whilst Falk’s use of interviews provides a way to gain more in-depth personal details about class and cultural identity from the visitors themselves. Chapter 4 will discuss the methodological framework of this research.

121

Chapter 4 Methodology

The main aim of the chapter is to outline the reasons why a mixed-method approach was adopted for the data collection and analysis. This chapter has four subsections: the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of both quantitative and qualitative research methods (Chapter 4.1), an introduction to mixed-method research (Chapter 4.2), the statistical analytical methods adopted for this current research (Chapter 4.3), and a description of the specific ways of applying the method in a practical perspective (Chapter 4.4). Drawing on studies using specific statistical technique(s) within the field of cultural sociology, this chapter also discusses how the objectives of the current research can be met through the use of the chosen techniques of data analysis.