I think in some sense the readings for this class came as a welcome relief, since it seemed to provide some answers and directions to many of us who are struggling with the notion of 'class' in our own work. Particularly, the Leichty article and the one on 'Global Middle classes' seemed to provide a lot of clues on how to approach my own field with its different 'class' groups, but ones that I cannot articulate in terms of traditional categories of the bourgeoisie and proletariat or haves and have nots.
'Class' as 'practice, production and performance' as Leitchy says it seems much more real to apply to my own work. Because to come to think of it, in terms of the life skills project, its not the distinction that the groups I work seem to be making in terms of the material differences, but very immaterial ones like ways of being, life style, consumption and so on. And this is what categorises the fluidity about the middle class I guess, because with the coming in of whole new sets of service industry jobs or 'affective labour' as the Heiman, Leichty and Freeman point out, there seems to be new modes of mobility available (in terms of material wealth) but as Bourdieu would say, what is lacking is the 'disctinction' that comes from knowledge of certain forms of cultural production. If I were to apply it to my field, this is perhaps just what makes me feel like there is a difference between the 'management' and the 'facilitators' - even though the facilitators with new jobs equal to the status of a teacher in a school they perhaps earn as much; but then they don't seem to resemble the very middle class (upper caste?) teachers of even the charitable trust school who display their caste / class status in insisting in talking with me in English, or through the avenues they have chosen for their son's education or even the typical forms of jewellery they wear to display. In fact this difference is perhaps more clearly evident in their orientation towards the children - while the teachers view them as troublesome and ill-mannered, the facilitators view them as their own, to be given the 'skills' that will help them transcend their 'social class' and thereby perhaps economic class as well.
Class as production is also very useful to me in resolving the differences in middle classness that see on the field. Like Heiman, Leichty and Freeman point out there are 'middle classes' and the plurality is shaped as an interaction between agents and structures - in response to the state, ideologies and material practices of capitalism, forms of consumerism, etc. So I now understand that while I (and I suspect in popular imagination when we talk of the middle class) we most often refer to the 'new middle class' but its perhaps equally important to trace out how the anxieties of creating distinction for themselves also plays out with the traditional middle class.
But some questions I have in relation to all this: how or when can you 'categorise' (functionally) a group as belonging to a particular class? For example, if we understand class as production or performance, would a life skills training which teaches working class children middle class ways to be and behave allow one to move up the social ladder? Or do we view it generationally as we do in education, wherein even if a person to move up to the level of a PhD, he'd still be a first-generation learner if his parents were not educated?
Second, as Wright seems to suggest, conflict and exploitation as central to class is inevitable since classes by nature have different stakes; yet, as Breen suggests of Weber's theory, in practice are classes positioned in conflict against each other since similar goals of mobility, status, aspirations characterize many classes? The Marxian / neo-Marxian response to this is of course that this is the working of capitalist ideology, but for example in a communist society, would aspiration for distinction and status be absent?
'Class' as 'practice, production and performance' as Leitchy says it seems much more real to apply to my own work. Because to come to think of it, in terms of the life skills project, its not the distinction that the groups I work seem to be making in terms of the material differences, but very immaterial ones like ways of being, life style, consumption and so on. And this is what categorises the fluidity about the middle class I guess, because with the coming in of whole new sets of service industry jobs or 'affective labour' as the Heiman, Leichty and Freeman point out, there seems to be new modes of mobility available (in terms of material wealth) but as Bourdieu would say, what is lacking is the 'disctinction' that comes from knowledge of certain forms of cultural production. If I were to apply it to my field, this is perhaps just what makes me feel like there is a difference between the 'management' and the 'facilitators' - even though the facilitators with new jobs equal to the status of a teacher in a school they perhaps earn as much; but then they don't seem to resemble the very middle class (upper caste?) teachers of even the charitable trust school who display their caste / class status in insisting in talking with me in English, or through the avenues they have chosen for their son's education or even the typical forms of jewellery they wear to display. In fact this difference is perhaps more clearly evident in their orientation towards the children - while the teachers view them as troublesome and ill-mannered, the facilitators view them as their own, to be given the 'skills' that will help them transcend their 'social class' and thereby perhaps economic class as well.
Class as production is also very useful to me in resolving the differences in middle classness that see on the field. Like Heiman, Leichty and Freeman point out there are 'middle classes' and the plurality is shaped as an interaction between agents and structures - in response to the state, ideologies and material practices of capitalism, forms of consumerism, etc. So I now understand that while I (and I suspect in popular imagination when we talk of the middle class) we most often refer to the 'new middle class' but its perhaps equally important to trace out how the anxieties of creating distinction for themselves also plays out with the traditional middle class.
But some questions I have in relation to all this: how or when can you 'categorise' (functionally) a group as belonging to a particular class? For example, if we understand class as production or performance, would a life skills training which teaches working class children middle class ways to be and behave allow one to move up the social ladder? Or do we view it generationally as we do in education, wherein even if a person to move up to the level of a PhD, he'd still be a first-generation learner if his parents were not educated?
Second, as Wright seems to suggest, conflict and exploitation as central to class is inevitable since classes by nature have different stakes; yet, as Breen suggests of Weber's theory, in practice are classes positioned in conflict against each other since similar goals of mobility, status, aspirations characterize many classes? The Marxian / neo-Marxian response to this is of course that this is the working of capitalist ideology, but for example in a communist society, would aspiration for distinction and status be absent?
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