“Non-publics” of Legitimized Cultural Goods. Who are They?

Abstract

This work does not pretend to go in-depth into questioning the notion of “non-publics”, but rather aims to show that those whose preferences are far from high-brow culture are in fact publics of an offer near and dear to them, since it is part of their referential world. Thus, based on a two-phase study on consumption of cultural goods among low and medium-income households in a Mexican city, this article identifies the people considered as non-publics, come upon the consideration that variable degrees of exclusion are imposed on them by the social structured space, and sheds some light on a dimension rarely considered in the study of arts consumption : the valuation strategies applied to legitimized cultural goods by those who do not attend high-brow events, which leads to state that so-called non-publics are in fact social agents : individuals capable of exercising a thought of and reflexive behavior on the world.