Uncertain Success

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranita Ray
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Food Preferences ◽  
Port City ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
School Work ◽  
Race Ethnicity

This chapter explores how Port City youth invest in displaying their socially mobile markers not only through school, work, and bourgeois heteronormative life but also through their everyday styles and consumptions. Youth performed class in their daily lives by producing mobility symbols in their leisure practices, clothing, music, vernacular, and food preferences. To manage their haphazard educational and occupational trajectories, the youth redefined mobility into goals that were achievable. While the majority of our understanding of youth regarding race/ethnicity, gender, and class is based on school ethnographies, a context in which students often perform class through memberships in groups that are part of a hierarchical order, this chapter frames meanings of class and youth cultural production by considering how youth perform social mobility in everyday life as they transition to adulthood. When highlighting how youth managed uncertain trajectories by redefining mobility, this chapter emphasizes the points of contact between the marginalized Port City youth and middle-class people who facilitated their access to middle-class cultural capital while also causing “hidden injuries” of class and race. Youth consumed certain foods, visited certain restaurants, watched shows, and even left Port City to claim membership in the middle class—and sometimes this further constrained opportunities.

scholarly journals The imperative of images: construction of affinities through the cuse of digital media

Cadernos Pagu ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 91-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iara Beleli
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Social And Cultural Capital ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

Based upon ethnographic research conducted in relationship sites and applications used by people seeking affective/sexual relationships, the present article analyzes how digital media has been incorporated into the daily lives of heterosexual women aged 35-48, understood to be "independent" and "middle class" and residing in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Autonomy, liberty and affinity are recurrent terms in the narratives of these women, leading us to questions regarding what is involved in their choice of partners whose affinities are described in terms of their similarities with the women's levels of social and cultural capital. These affinities are initially perceived through the digital circulation of photos, which are read not only according to the physical appearance of their subjects, but also according to their surroundings - objects and landscapes - which provoke the imagination with regards to the subjects' "lifestyles". Looking at the play of these new dynamics, I seek to understand how differences (in terms of class, generation, race/color, localization, etc.) operate in women's selection of partners.

scholarly journals Perfil e caracterização de um bairro popular empreendedor em Feira de Santana: análise socioespacial dos processos de complexificação de centralidades de comércio e serviços

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Mateus Barbosa Santos da Silva ◽  
Angelo Serpa
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Mobility Analysis ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Methodological Procedures ◽  
Upward Social Mobility ◽  
First Moment

ResumoO objetivo desta pesquisa é compreender e analisar os processos de complexificação de centralidades de comércio e serviços, por meio dos campos da produção e do consumo - inclusive cultural - em um bairro popular de Feira de Santana. Para tanto, foram articulados os métodos dialético e fenomenológico. Como procedimentos metodológicos realizou-se uma revisão bibliográfica, uma pesquisa documental e pesquisas diretas em campo: aplicação de questionários junto aos usuários de comércios e serviços e aos empreendedores no bairro do Tomba (quantitativa); realização de entrevistas com os empreendedores (qualitativa). Os resultados estão estruturados em quatro etapas: uma discussão sobre o conceito de classe média no Brasil, o processo histórico de formação do Tomba e sua consolidação como centralidade na cidade, uma discussão sobre consumidores e outra sobre empreendedores no bairro. As principais conclusões apontam que o comércio e os serviços neste bairro exercem uma grande atratividade local, tornando-se indispensáveis aos seus moradores devido a sua amplitude, à gama de comércio e serviços ofertados, à facilidade de acesso e aos preços acessíveis.Palavras-chave: Empreendedorismo Popular; Ascensão Social; Análise Urbano-Regional; Bairro Popular; Feira de Santana. AbstractThe main goal of this research was to understand and analyze the processes of complexification of the centralities in retailand services, through the fields of production and consumption - including cultural production - in a popular neighborhood in Feira de Santana, state of Bahia, Brazil. The main methodological procedures were a literature review and fieldwork, in which we pursued to accomplish a quantitative stage and a qualitative stage. On the first moment we applied questionnaires to consumers and to entrepreneurs in the neighborhood of Tomba, the second part consisted of interviewing entrepreneurs who were also respondents of the questionnaire. This article is structured in four topics: discussion of the concept of middle-class in Brazil; Tomba’s neighborhood historical process of establishment and its consolidation as a centrality in Feira de Santana; a discussion on the profile of the consumers; and a reflection on the profile of the entrepreneurs. The main results show that retailand services in Tomba perform a major local attraction, due to its variety, range, low prices and scope.Keywords: Popular Entrepreneurship; Upward Social Mobility; Analysis Urban-Regional; Neighborhoods; Feira de Santana. ResumenEl principal objetivo de esta investigación es comprender y analizar los procesos de complejización de la centralización de comercio y servicios, a través de los campos de producción y de consumo – incluyendo la cultura – en un barrio popular en Feira de Santana, estado de Bahia, Brasil. Los principales procedimientos metodológicos fueron la revisión bibliográfica y el trabajo de campo, en el que buscamos lograr una etapa cuantitativa y una etapa cualitativa. Al principio se realizaron cuestionarios a los consumidores y emprendedores y posteriormente, se entrevistaron los emprendedores del barrio de Tomba. Este artículo se estructura en cuatro tópicos: discusión sobre el concepto de clase media en Brasil; el proceso histórico de formación del barrio de Tomba en Feira de Santana y la consolidación de su rol central en la ciudad; una discusión del perfil de los consumidores y otra sobre los emprendedores. Los principales resultados muestran que el comercio y los servicios en Tomba ejercen un gran atractivo local, debido a su variedad, facilidad de acceso y precios bajos.Palavras clave: Emprendimiento Popular; Ascenso Social; Análisis Urbano Regional; Barrios Populares; Feira de Santana.

Embodied memories of geographical and social mobility: White-collar women in post-communist films about Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 278-294
Author(s):  
Andrea Virginás
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Simultaneous Presence ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
Class Habitus

This article focuses on the ambivalent features of intellectual white-collar female characters in post-1989 films fully or partly produced in Romania ( The Oak, Fox-Hunter, The District, Sieranevada, Graduation and Toni Erdmann). Their ambivalence is examined in the framework of Pierre Bourdieu’s class habitus theory as interpreted by Tony Bennett and his colleagues, suggesting that the simultaneous presence of working-class, petit bourgeois and bourgeois/middle-class cultural capital types contributes to this effect. The performance of iconic actresses (from Maia Morgenstern to Sandra Hüller) is also situated within melodrama genre theory, a filmic template representing social mobility, often accompanied by travel. Finally, within the framework of mediated cultural remembrances the argument is made that these white-collar women may be incorporated into the category of ‘banal commemoration’ as developed by Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, making it possible for Romanians to process traumatic memories of mobility engineered by the communist and post-communist states.

How and Why Haifa Has Become the “Palestinian Cultural Capital” in Israel

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1168-1188
Author(s):  
Nadeem Karkabi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Cultural Activities ◽  
National Space ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Palestinian Population ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The City

With the growth of Palestinian original cultural productions and independent performance venues in Haifa, its residents have dubbed it the “Palestinian cultural capital in Israel.” An important cosmopolitan center prior to the loss of its majority Palestinian population in 1948, how have Haifa's Palestinian residents today revived the city and claimed this ambitious new title? What factors have enabled this development to take place specifically in Haifa? And, what can it tell us about Palestinians’ imagination of national space under Israel's dominance? In this article, I address these questions and argue that the appearance of a new generation of a Palestinian urban middle class and the regression of Haifa's centrality in Israeli geopolitics have allowed educated and affluent Palestinians to (re)create a decidedly Palestinian civic sphere through cultural activities. I further argue that this imagining of Haifa demonstrates the ways cultural production can assert belonging to the Palestinian nation.

Gated Communities

2020 ◽  
pp. 118-141
Author(s):  
John Wei
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Gated Communities ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Queer Communities

This chapter focuses on the politics of proximity on locative mobile media that evoke the issue of social position and class affiliation, and on online and urban queer communities that are separated and segregated by class-related cultural capital and social privilege as “gated communities”. Mobilized queer cultures and desires are deeply structured and further complicated by social mobility and immobility through the myth of quality. Social and spatial gating and walling in China’s online and urban middle-class communities have functioned as vehicles of social inclusion and exclusion in the country’s ongoing post-suzhi transformations. This has significantly hindered the once-promising social mobilization and started to concretize existing social stratifications and segregations amid the ongoing social change.

scholarly journals Escaping India’s culture of education: Migration desires among aspiring middle-class young men

Ethnography ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sancho
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Overseas Students ◽  
Social Responsibilities ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Culture Of Education

Research on Indian overseas students in Australia has shown that there is an intricate connection between class and migration processes. Yet most of this work has focused on the experiences of students already abroad. Research on the formulation of migration-decisions and class dynamics from the sending side has been slow to emerge. This paper fills this gap and locates the analysis of migration desires within the literature on the Indian middle classes. I demonstrate how a middle-class culture of education that articulates hegemonic experiences, aspirations, and trajectories drives many aspiring middle-class young men to consider migrating as an alternative path to social mobility. Migration emerges as a temporary strategy geared towards accruing economic and cultural capital necessary for the fulfilment of class-based personal ambitions and wider social responsibilities at home. Migration is shown to stretch the boundaries of processes of class formation that now straddles multiple sites, resources, and aspirations.

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.

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