A Global-Middle-Class House?1 Cultural Capital, Taste, and Kitsch

Home Cultures ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-179
Author(s):  
Iris Levin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Global Middle Class

scholarly journals MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS of the NOUVEAUX RICHES and the CULTURAL CONSTITUTION of the GLOBAL MIDDLE CLASS

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47
Author(s):  
Jennifer Smith Maguire
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Symbolic Boundaries ◽  
Media Frames ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Global Middle Class ◽  
The Media ◽  
Upper Middle Class

The article offers a distinctive account of how the nouveaux riches serve as an anchor for a range of upper- middle- class ambivalences and anxieties associated with transformations of capitalism and shifting global hierarchies. Reflecting the long- term association of middle- class symbolic boundaries with notions of refinement and respectability, it examines how the discourse of civility shapes how the nouveaux riches are represented to the upper middle class, identifying a number of recurrent media frames and narrative tropes related to vulgarity, civility, and order. The author argues that these representations play a central role in the reproduction of the Western professional middle class, and in the cultural constitution of a global middle class — professional, affluent, urban, and affiliated by an aesthetic regime of civility that transcends national borders. The findings underline the significance of representations of the new super- rich as devices through which the media accomplish the global circulation of an upper- middle- class repertoire of cultural capital, which is used both to police shifting class boundaries and to establish a legitimate preserve for univorous snobbishness.

scholarly journals Shifting power dynamics in interviews with children: a minority ethnic, working-class researcher’s reflections

2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110347
Author(s):  
Imane Kostet
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Minority Ethnic

This article aims to contribute to the literature on power dynamics and researchers’ positionality in qualitative research, by shedding light on the experiences of a minority ethnic researcher with a working-class background. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts, it discusses how middle-class children confronted the researcher with language stigma and how they, while drawing boundaries vis-à-vis those who ‘lack’ cultural capital, (unintentionally) drew boundaries against the researcher herself. In turn, it illustrates how during interviews with working-class children, manners had to be adopted with which the researcher is no longer familiar. This article calls on ethics committees to more strongly consider how researchers might become ‘vulnerable’ themselves during fieldwork and to acknowledge intersectional experiences that potentially cause power dynamics to shift, even in research involving groups that are socially believed to have little power, such as children.

A “Magic and Poetic” Moment of Dissensus: Aesthetics and Politics in the June 2013 (Gezi Park) Protests in Turkey

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Attila Aytekin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Aesthetics And Politics ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Predominant Form ◽  
The Relationship

This article departs from analyses that underline the middle-class character of June 2013 (Gezi Park) protests in Turkey by focusing on the relationship between politics and aesthetics in the protest movement. The predominant form of protest in the movement was aesthetic political acts, which did not bring about any distinction based on class or cultural capital. Rather, the artistic practices and cultural symbols employed by protesters bridged gaps by bringing a large and diverse body of people around a common political position. The June protests constituted a moment of “dissensus” in the Rancièrean sense as the shared position was based on an essential claim for equality of the dēmos and the demands of the anonymous to be seen, heard, counted in, and to partake. The article focuses on the role Second New Wave poetry played in the protests, as the protesters appropriated the ironic and ambiguous verses of the Second New Wave poets to create a unified movement.

scholarly journals China’s Emerging Global Middle Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-108
Author(s):  
Björn Gustafsson ◽  
Terry Sicular ◽  
Xiuna Yang
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
High Income ◽  
Income Country ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
High Income Country ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Rural Residents ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Chip Data ◽  
Global Middle Class

This chapter examines China’s middle class by using CHIP data for 2002, 2007, and 2013. “Middle class” is defined as having income high enough not to be regarded as poor but not so high as to be regarded as rich if living in a high-income country. Based on this definition, China’s middle class was extremely small in 2002; grew but was still less than 10 percent of the population in 2007; and by 2013 had expanded to one-fifth of China’s population, roughly 250 million people. Further analysis shows that China’s middle class is largely urban, lives in the East, and has other distinctive characteristics. Simulations reveal that past growth of China’s middle class was due to across-the-board, shared income growth rather than a redistribution of income. As of 2020 China’s middle class should double in size, constituting a majority of urban residents but still a small minority of rural residents.

scholarly journals ‘Below English Line’: An ethnographic exploration of class and the English language in post-liberalization India

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 576-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAZANA JAYADEVA
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
English Language ◽  
Critical Element ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
And Performance ◽  
English Training

AbstractAnthropological studies of India's post-liberalization middle classes have tended to focus mainly on the role of consumption behaviour in the constitution of this class group. Building on these studies, and taking class as an object of ethnographic enquiry, I argue that, over the last 20 years, class dynamics in the country have been significantly altered by the unprecedentedly important and complex role that the English language has come to play in the production and reproduction of class. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork—conducted at commercial spoken-English training centres, schools, and corporate organizations in Bangalore—I analyse the processes by which this change in class dynamics has occurred, and how it is experienced on the ground. I demonstrate how, apart from being a valuable type of class cultural capital in its own right, proficiency in English has come to play a key role in the acquisition and performance of other important forms of capital associated with middle-class identity. As a result, being able to demonstrate proficiency in English has come to be experienced as a critical element in claiming and maintaining a space in the middle class, regardless of the other types of class cultural capital a person possesses.

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