Economic reforms and the new middle class

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Anshu Srivastava
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
New Middle Class

scholarly journals The IT Industry and Employment in India: A Critical Reassessment

2020 ◽  
pp. 655-669
Author(s):  
Aabid Firdausi MS
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Industrial Restructuring ◽  
Industrial Dynamics ◽  
It Industry ◽  
Oriented Growth ◽  
Private Initiative ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Analysis Of Narratives

The Indian IT industry has been regarded as a success of neoliberal economic reforms, driven by private initiative and export-oriented growth. Accordingly, employees of the IT industry that are symbolic of the ‘new India’ are seen as the aspirational new middle class, ‘different’ from the traditional working class. This article critically examines these claims. Firstly, it is argued that the development of the IT industry should be situated in the context of the larger development of capitalism in India. Secondly, through an analysis of narratives from interviews with workers during a period of industrial restructuring due to geopolitical concerns and technological change, the article attempts to understand workers’ perceptions of industrial dynamics as well as possibilities of collective resistance against the logic of capital.

Outsourcing the Self

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Call Center ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Self ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
First World ◽  
Class Youth ◽  
Call Center Workers

This chapter analyzes how call center workers, who are mostly middle- and working-class youth, create narratives that are described as expressing modern forms of “individualized Indianness.” The chapter demonstrates how call center workers produce narratives of individualized Indianness by engaging in practices of mimicry, accent training, and consumption; by going to public spaces such as bars and pubs; and by having romantic relationships that are largely hidden from their families. The narratives examined in this chapter are created out of an asymmetrical context of power as young Indians work as “subjects” of a global economy who primarily serve “First World” customers. The interviews with Indian youth reflect how tradition and modernity, mimicry and authenticity, collude with each other to dialogically create new middle-class subjectivities.

Green Politics and the New Class: Selfishness or Virtue?

1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Eckersley
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Green Movement ◽  
New Class ◽  
Green Parties ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Green Politics ◽  
Material Values

The predominantly new middle-class social composition of the green movement has become a matter of increasing interest in the wake of the success of green parties and the growth of an international green movement. This paper considers the concept of the ‘new class' in relation to two explanations for the social composition of the green movement. The class-interest argument seeks to show that green politics is a means of furthering either middle-class or new-class interests while the ‘new childhood’ argument claims that the development of the green movement is the result of the spread of post-material values, the main bearers of which are the new class. Against these arguments a more comprehensive explanation is presented, which focuses on the education of the new class and its relative structural autonomy from the production process.

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