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Aesthetico-cultural Cosmopolitanism: A New Kind of ‘Good Taste’ Among French Youth

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Cosmopolitanism, Markets, and Consumption

Abstract

This chapter seeks to examine how young people engage with the globalization of culture from a cosmopolitan perspective, that is, the relation to and inclusion of Otherness through cultural consumption. To address this question, we shall draw on a French survey (N = 1605) that was designed to describe how young French (aged 18 to 29 years old) consume international cultural products and subsequently structure transnational artistic and cultural imaginaries for themselves. This analysis presents aesthetico-cultural cosmopolitanism along a spectrum of configurations (five in total) that account for the majority of young individuals; it thus distances itself from the view of cosmopolitanism as a phenomenon associated only with elites. Nevertheless, social variations linked to living conditions, capital, resources, and aspirations are not absent from this spectrum.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This quantitative study was financed by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The questionnaire (N = 1605, face-to-face, hour-long interviews) was composed of a national sample stratified by age, gender, and location in metropolitan France.

  2. 2.

    In France, this category accounts for very different types of music from an aesthetic or cultural point of view, but all of them come from non-Western countries or regions of the world (Africa, South and Central America, Asia, etc.).

  3. 3.

    Despite the compulsory teaching of two foreign languages starting in middle school (most often English and Spanish) and a growing multicultural population (one-quarter of French children and adolescents are of foreign origin), multilingualism among French youth remains relatively limited: 59% of young individuals state that they are fluent in at least one other language (30% master one foreign language, 23% two, and 6% three or more). Among those individuals who say that they are fluent in at least one foreign language, 50% say that they speak English, 19% Spanish, 6% German, 4% Arabic or Italian, 3% an African language, and 2% Portuguese.

  4. 4.

    The recent discussion between Savage and Mills (see Mills, 2014; Savage et al., 2013, 2015) underlines the importance of these changes in multidimensional social class construction.

  5. 5.

    Second or even third generation, since 90% of the young people in this group were born in metropolitan France and 2% in overseas territories.

  6. 6.

    ‘Only’ 86% of these individuals were born in France.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gemass, CNRS/Paris Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Vincenzo Cicchelli

  2. Ministry of Culture and Communication, Paris, France

    Sylvie Octobre

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  1. Vincenzo Cicchelli
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  2. Sylvie Octobre
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Odense M, Denmark

    Julie Emontspool

  2. University of Southern Denmark, Odense M, Denmark

    Ian Woodward

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Cicchelli, V., Octobre, S. (2018). Aesthetico-cultural Cosmopolitanism: A New Kind of ‘Good Taste’ Among French Youth. In: Emontspool, J., Woodward, I. (eds) Cosmopolitanism, Markets, and Consumption. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64179-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64179-9_4

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