HuK-Forum: Culture and … Class, Gender, Generation

Gastvortrag von Mirko Petrić, Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar Croatia

This talk discusses the realities of contemporary cultural participation in a South-East European country following the period of its post-socialist transformation. Until relatively recently, the influences of the socialist cultural policies, privileging a diffusionist, high-culture-centred model, were felt in Croatia both in the realms of cultural consumption and taste. Drawing on extensive sets of recent empirical data, the lecture explores how these historical legacies now intersect with contemporary dynamics of class, gender, and generation.

The findings discussed suggest a more complex relationship between social space and cultural practices than that assumed by legacy cultural policies. While class remains the primary structuring principle of the field of cultural practices, generation and gender are shown to significantly modify its effects. Special attention in the analysis is devoted to these modifications, the understanding of which opens new avenues for cultural policy intervention.