Introduction

In this chapter I examine the lifeworlds of two elite or high-status occupations: violin virtuosos and scientists working in prestigious life-science laboratories. I do so using conceptual and methodological tools and insights developed by Everett Hughes.

One of Hughes’ key concepts is the ‘career’ (Becker and Carper 1956; Becker 1970; Hughes 1971: 283–407). For Hughes, the notion of the career, a crucial concept in the interactionist approach to the study of occupations, is a broad and flexible one. It can apply just as well to one’ career as a drug addict, patient or mother as to one’ occupation. Careers are developed/played out in the context of one’ activities as one moves in and out of various institutional contexts: skid row, hospital, family.1 Hughes’ concept of the career as a multistage process constitutes the basis for my work, described below, on the socialization and professional trajectories of elite musicians and scientists. These careers are similar to one another in the sense that they are understood to be ‘creative’. The notion of the ‘creative career’ is a relatively recent concept developed in the field of creative industry studies (Mathieu 2011). The particularity of the creative career consists in the extraordinary commitment individuals display toward their chosen occupation, more specifically, their focus on the creation of the new products or new forms of old products and their involvement in daily activities oriented to ‘innovation’. In other words, creative careers are characteristic of groups engaged in intellectual and/or artistic forms of work. Creative careers are often built inside creative industries (movie, design, arts, sciences). In both studies reported here, I followed individuals who were perceived within their respective professional environments to be part of an elite – people working among the top groups in what are widely regarded as the best places for mastering and applying their exceptional skills, that is, for demonstrating ‘excellence’. One finding of my research is that while violin virtuosi and top-level research scientists are hard-working individuals, they are developing or have developed their potential in particular social environments within which backstage actors contribute substantially to the ‘excellence’ demonstrated by elite musicians and scientists. This runs counter to the conventional understanding held by outsiders that they are exceptional individuals who possess not just excellence but, often, often, ‘genius’.