Popular Culture and Inequalities (PCI)

PCI explores cultural boundaries between social groups through the lens of popular culture (e.g., music, sports, digital- and entertainment-media) to foster inclusive futures, drawing on a nuanced understanding of the past and present.

Popular Culture and Inequalities (PCI) examines how cultural boundaries between different social groups are produced, maintained, and deconstructed. It does so in the broad domain of popular culture, ranging (but not exclusive to) from music, to sport, to film/television, and digital and entertainment media. Taking popular culture production, consumption, and content as fields of study, researchers focus on how discourses of difference (based on e.g., race, gender, nation, religion, social class, sexual orientation (and their intersections)) create, guard, but also challenge cultural boundaries. 

Additionally, the cluster explores how, in turn, these discourses enable and include some people while excluding others. The diverse range of researchers in this cluster contribute to theory development and empirical research in the realm of popular culture. Within the unique scope of ERMeCHS, researchers bring in different perspectives and approaches from media- and communication studies, arts- and culture studies, and history. The cluster aims to develop interventions that reduce existing inequities. By analyzing historical and contemporary contexts, the cluster strives to promote more inclusive futures, informed by a comprehensive understanding of the past and present.

Projects

Racism and Televised Football
Dr. Jacco van Sterkenburg. Grant: NWO-VIDI

Competing conceptions of diversity and city culture
Prof. dr. Susanne Janssen. Grant: VCC-Erasmus Initiative Vital Cities and Citizens

POPLIVE- Staging popular music: sustainable live music ecologies for artists, music venues and cities
Dr. Erik Hitters, Dr. Pauwke Berkers, Prof.dr. Susanne Janssen, Dr. Arno van der Hoeven. Grant: NWO Creative Industries SMART Culture

Worlds of Imagination
Prof. dr. Stijn Reijnders. Grant: ERC Consolidator Grant.