Marion Fourcade (UC Berkeley)

Date: 

Friday, November 19, 2021, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Zoom

The Type and The Grade – Wine Classifications and the Institutional Scaffolding of the Judgment of Taste

Abstract:

We tend to evaluate objects and people around us in two main ways: as types (having a particular, intrinsic, quality) or as grades (being more or less). This simple distinction applies across many domains, but it raises an obvious sociological question: under which conditions do we develop a "type" imaginary or a "grade" one? How are these imaginaries made real? What kinds of politics do they allow or preclude? I develop some answers through an empirical investigation of the emergence, settlement and contestation of wine classifications in Napa Valley and Burgundy. This presentation relies on a manuscript in progress with Rebecca Elliott (London School of Economics) and Olivier Jacquet (University of Burgundy).

Short biography:

Marion Fourcade is Professor of Sociology and Director of Social Science Matrix at UC Berkeley. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2000 and is an alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. A comparative sociologist by training and taste, she is the author of Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain and France, 1890s to 1990s (Princeton University Press, 2009). Other published works explore national variations in neoliberal transitions, political mores, and valuation cultures. More recently, her research focus has shifted to the rise, consolidation and social consequences of new classificatory regimes powered by big data and algorithms. A book on this topic, The Ordinal Society (with Kieran Healy), is under contract with Harvard University Press. Fourcade is a recipient of the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Book Award and the Society for the Social Studies of Science's Ludwik Fleck prize for outstanding book in the area of science and technology studies, as well as of the Lewis Coser award for theoretical agenda setting. Website: www.marionfourcade.org.

 

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