Elitist Egalitarianism: Negotiating Identity in the Norwegian Cultural Elite

The cultural elite are believed to be under siege due to significant changes in the ‘workings’ of cultural capital. Despite such changes, there is very little information about the class subjectivities of the ‘cultural elite’ themselves. The present article seeks to contribute to this shortcoming by taking advantage of in-depth qualitative interviews with individuals possessing great levels of cultural capital in a highly egalitarian country, Norway. This study shows that while the interviewees experience lack of recognition and honour from ‘the people’, they are far from passively descending. The main demarcation to other groups seems not to be cultural taste, but instead the orientation towards culture, broadly defined. While egalitarian sentiments are voiced, this does not hinder cultural elite awareness, but rather dampens how this can be expressed in public – merged into a form of elitist egalitarianism.