Conferences

In sociology of culture and consumption a major shift from snobs (Bourdieu) to omnivores (Peterson) has been highlighted. If a trend towards eclectism has indeed been attested, this paper intends to show that the impression of a unidirectional change is the result of the choice of analysis methods. Using more descriptive and qualitative methods such as multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) and ascendant hierarchical classification (AHC) allows us to introduce more nuances in findings. Savage, Gayo-Cal, Warde and Tampubolon notably consider that research about cultural lifestyles must be in-depth explorative in order to circumscribe the various relations between the different aspects of lifestyles. Explanatory methods, although powerful, fail to give a detailed image of the cultural patterns and tend to reduce the description of complex lifestyles to some cultural variables (dependent variables) and to limit their explanations to sociodemographic determinants (independent variables). Moreover this contribution shows how interesting the MCA and a linked ascendant hierarchical classification can be to combine quantitative and qualitative methods. Indeed, the AHC forms different classes from the MCA. To each class are attributed characteristics and individuals. If a way to contact these individuals has been foreseen, it is possible to get a more complete idea of the meaning of this classification through interviews.

From the analyses of the data about visitors of six museums of modern and contemporary art in Belgium (1900 individuals) using the SPAD software and from interviews, this contribution puts forward the suitability of the multiple correspondence analysis to explore the data in a more contrasted way. As a matter of fact, a MCA and a related AHC allow us to investigate whether several cultural patterns coexist contrary to more reductionist methods and to give consistency to them through a classification and an associated qualitative approach.