Negotiations of legitimacy : the value of recognition for Glasgow UNESCO City of Music

Abstract

This thesis examines the emergence of the organization, the Glasgow UNESCO City of Music, following the award of the title UNESCO City of music to Glasgow in 2008 from a Bourdieusian perspective. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, and particularly capital are used to interrogate the negotiation of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1986) in the field of music in Glasgow. The thesis examines how the members of the organization–viewed their organization’s position in the field of music in Glasgow and their attempts to secure its legitimacy in a field with established players. It shows how agents ‘work’ to negotiate for the positions they want, or need, in order to establish the legitimacy, and thus the position, of an organization through the acquisition and use of capital. Although cultural capital is a core constituent of an organization’s original position in the field of music the dominant and influential position of economic capital means that it is the symbolic capital associated with being granted funding rather than cultural capital, which influences and thus legitimate organizations in the cultural field. In its discussion of capital the thesis contributes to the literature on institutional work and organizational legitimacy.