”Every book shall be a paving-stone” : A study of ideological publishing houses in the Swedish literary field

The purpose of this thesis is to examine a selection of ideological publishing houses in Sweden today. We want to examine where they are situated in the literary society, their terms and prerequisites. This is achieved through interviews with informants from each of the publishing houses, which we analyze with concepts from the culture sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The publishing houses are also put in context through information from other actors in the literary field, together with previous research and other material about the Swedish book market. The main research problem in the thesis is to examine the relations between the selected publishing houses – which profile themselves as ideological – and the literary field where they exist. The theoretical framework consists of Bourdieu’s theories on the literary field. One of the main conflicts in the field is that between the cultural and the economical pole, both aspects that must be considered by the publisher. The increased market adaptation in the book business can lead to standardized publications and difficult conditions for smaller actors. The results show that independent publishing houses are an important complement to the larger publishing houses as they serve as a guarantee for variety within the field. Furthermore, the examined publishing houses function as a meeting place for readers, authors and other literary collaborators with the correct kind of symbolic capital. The publishing houses create alternative ways of book-selling and distribution. They also co-operate with agents/actors with a similar position in the field, to reach out with their publishing and ideology.Uppsatsnivå: