Australian Cultural Fields:

National and Transnational Dynamics

Australian Cultural Fields examines the forces changing contemporary Australian culture. Focusing on art, literature, media, sport, music and heritage, it assesses the influence of transnationalism, digitalisation, migration and multiculturalism, and the distinctive presence of Indigenous culture, on the relations between culture, class, gender, ethnicity and nation.

The concept of 'cultural field' is taken from the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who applied it to investigate how the production and consumption of culture are affected by the relations between cultural institutions, policy agencies and cultural markets. Australian Cultural Fields develops this perspective in a number of ways. It is the first study to examine the relations between transnational forces, new information technologies, and migrant and Indigenous cultures in the contemporary Australian context. Internationally, it is the first large scale study to interrogate the relations between the fields of cultural production and consumption.

Learn more about the books published as a part of the project here.

Latest News

ACF winners at the AWAPAs

Cover of a book titled ‘The Australian Art Field’. On the top half of the cover is a photograph of Richard Bell’s sculptural protest ‘…no tin shack…’ on a barge in the Venice lagoon. Below the photograph is a thin white band with the words ‘Routledge Research in Art History’. The book title appears on the bottom half of the cover against a reddish background. It is ‘The Australian Art Field’. The subtitle is ‘Practices, Policies, Institutions’. Below the book title are the worlds ‘Edited by Tony Bennett, Deborah Stevenson, Fred Myers, and Tamara Winikoff’. The Routledge logo is in the lower right-hand corner of the cover.

Australian Cultural Fields goes public

A row of people hold smartphones. It is mainly people’s hands which are visible, as well as the profile of an out-of-focus face which is lowered to look at a phone.

ABC digital interactive article on class and cultural tastes

Fair play: Australia needs to make sport a more equal playing field

With medals around their necks, members of a women's AFL team smile for the camera, making 'Number 1' signs with their hands.

'For the Love (or Not) of Art': Survey finds barriers inhibiting participation in the Australian art world

A man and a woman look at a landscape painting, with their backs to the camera.