Artikel

Abstract

■ Aim Pubs are focal stages of sociability. This article investigates the identifications and distinctions between us and them, made by Finnish people talking about their own behaviour in pubs, and the pubs they like and dislike. The data consists of 117 interviews with 23 to 35-year-old young adults who work in business or administration. ■ Method The method applies classification analysis and is influenced by the structuralist, semiotic, and rhetoric traditions. ■ Results The analysis shows that many of the interviewees' classifications involve distancing themselves from those people that go to ‘superficial' pubs. The interviewees distinguish themselves from those frequenting superficial places by classifying the interactions there as false and stiff, and contrary to a genuine and relaxed sociability. With these distinctions the interviewees do not aim to distinguish themselves as ‘above' others. Instead, they define themselves as ordinary people by separating themselves from people who are fake, pretentious, or too faddish. ■ Conclusions This opposition to superficiality and the emphasis on authenticity is reminiscent of Rousseau's criticism of artificial needs. The Finnish interviewees seem to define sociability in pubs in a way that valorises the virtues of ordinariness and modesty. The results of the study speak for the persistence of the norm of equality, inherited from the peasant culture, rather than for the strength of the middle class culture which emphasises taste hierarchies.