McPhee Gribble's ‘determinedly unglamorous’ parties

A small publisher's accrual and conversion of social capital

Bibliographic Data

ID12522285
AuthorsLuca Demetriadi (0009-0004-1436-5040, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2026
Publication date2026-03-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia International Australia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1329-878X • E-ISSN: 2200-467X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1329878x261435707
OpenAlexW7140817708
LanguageEN
References cited22

This article uses material from two archives pertaining to Australian independent publisher McPhee Gribble to argue that social capital is as important to a small press as economic or cultural capital. Such independent publishers pursue forms of capital other than economic capital. Yet the particular importance of Pierre Bourdieu’s social capital to small presses has been more difficult to demonstrate than symbolic capital more broadly. This research positions the parties thrown in McPhee Gribble's warehouse, documented in the archives through photographs, guest lists, and planning memos, as the publisher’s mechanism and site for the accrual of social capital, and its simultaneous conversion into capital's different forms. This archival material establishes a framework to understand a pervasive feature of the publishing industry that has gone understudied, with such parties often appearing to exist outside the primary business activities of a press

Accrual · Capital (architecture · Cultural capital · Economic capital · Mechanism (biology · Project commissioning · Publishing · Social capital · Australian History and Society · Media Studies and Communication · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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