The Hobbyist

Currid, Elizabeth, "The Economics of a Good Party: Social Mechanisms and the Legitimization of Art/Culture", Journal of Economics and Finance, Vol. 31, no. 2, Fall 2007, pp.386-394

Elizabeth Currid’s essay “The Economics of a Good Party” comes from the academic field of economics and offers an overview of the social processes involved in the formation of art/culture value. In order to define these social processes Currid has generalised the individual consumer as well as the cultural fields that are affected by these processes. Producers, distributors and consumers are masses placed into categories. This is to be expected from an overview of a social system.

From the point of view of an individual creative practitioner it is interesting to consider the categories and processes that Currid has described if only to take advantage of or subvert them. The reason for this is that the implications of the processes through which value comes to be defined appear to be overtly negative. Negative in the sense that the consumer is a passive individual whose taste is shaped by other people in positions of power over particular cultural fields. The generalised individual also needs their taste valorised by their peers or those they respect, i.e. celebrities.

The category that interests me is that of the “hobbyist”. Currid writes that “their sheer investment in and knowledge of the cultural field means their presence adds cachet to the very scenes that they participate in and later report and evaluate through a wide variety of channels” (390). It is interesting in that it is a category that gives the consumer power over their own taste. They are an individual who has developed their criteria for judging value by spending time with a cultural field and developing a passion for it. Currid also describes the hobbyist in a social framework, where their presence and opinions are valued in association with art/culture products. Their knowledge of a field validates the value they place on it.

The investment of time and building of knowledge in a particular field of art/culture is a key idea here as it draws a line between the passive consumer and a passionate consumer. The passive consumer is not a description any artist, musician, designer, or filmmaker would wish to be described as.