Symbolic capital and the inclusion of ethnic minority artists in Dublin and Warsaw

Abstract

The dominant literature delineates that European museums tend to ‘resist’ the inclusion of immigrant and ethnic minority artists due to a Eurocentric evaluation of the art within a postcolonial setting. This study builds on this premise, but also emphasizes the significance of ‘symbolic capital’, as conceptualized by Pierre Bourdieu, in processes of inclusion and exclusion. While the evaluation of the art is of vast importance, inclusion and exclusion are also influenced by the relation between the symbolic capital of the museum professionals and the cultural and social capital of ethnic minority artists. Moreover, museum professionals in Dublin and Warsaw find creative ways of both safeguarding their symbolic capital and including ethnic minority artists. The research is based on semi-structured interviews with key museum professionals in several main modern art museums and galleries, and with ethnic minority artists, in the relatively new immigration cities of Dublin and Warsaw, as well as a review of past exhibitions.