Work, woes, symbolic violence - felt insecurity of older middle-class shopkeepers in rural eastern Germany

• In Event: 40860 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6. Atypical markets

Abstract

The paper explores various dimensions of felt insecurity for older eastern German shopkeepers. As a fraction of what Bourdieu calls the ‘declining Petit Bourgeoisie’, they carry a specific habitus characterized, in the abstract, by a disappointed ‘cultural good will’. Nowadays, in Germany as elsewhere in the West, this disappointment is expressed and filled out by taking on right-wing populist attitudes that express the felt insecurity. This paper, utilising in-depth interviews, explores the forms and shades of insecurity with regards to its perceived economic, political and everyday sources. It then endeavours to add theoretical value by theorising the processes that favour the development of such attitudes. This is done with the help of the concept of ‘cultural dispossession’. I close with an empirical programme of validation.

Author

• Tim Winzler, University of Glasgow