Cultural consecration and legitimation-Modes, agents and processes

•This special issue offers new directions in the analysis of symbolic production with a particular focus on modes, agents and processes of consecration and legitimation.•Highlight both traditional and new modes of cultural valorization.•Acute awareness that transformations of fields of cultural production can alter the very act of value attribution.•Shed new light on how in contemporary cultural fields the two dominant logics of recognition-commercial and artistic-are negotiated, and often brought into dialogue.