Regionalism and the Publishing Class: Conflicted Isomorphism and Negotiated Identity in a Nested Field of American Publishing

Abstract

In sociology different streams of field theory have not been systematically integrated, despite their common intellectual heritage. Incorporating insights from three streams of field theory –Bourdieusian, neo-institutional, and strategic action fields – this work examines the oft-neglected field site of cultural production outside of geographic cores. The case is concerned with book publishers in the San Francisco Bay Area, how they work to balance competing isomorphic pressures between the regional and national fields, and their strategic decoupling of identity and practice while working to maintain legitimacy both in the national field on which they depend for promotion and sales, and in the regional field on which they depend for a sense of group identity and purpose.