The incursion of market logics into cultural fields

This paper explores the contest between symbolic capital and economic capital that takes place in fields of cultural production when functional pressures challenge the field’s autonomy to define non-market criteria for its cultural products. The question of how innovations consistent with market logics can be introduced into cultural fields without undermining symbolic capital is examined in the context of first-class County cricket in England. Empirical analysis of the contest between cricket-as-art and cricket-ascommodity suggests that the sustainability of cultural fields is enhanced when market logics are earthed around the field’s symbolic core through theorization, mobilization and decoupling of market-driven innovations