In Search of the Middle: Histories and ethnographies of middle class in Latin America

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Though a classic topic of intellectual contention, middle-class only seldom garnered attention as an expert language among Latin-Americanists. Yet, social entrepreneurship, market expansion targeting the poor, and various social and economic policies have dislodged entrenched class structures, reinstating debates about the place of middle-class formations in the region. We ask: how does middle-class gain traction as a social and historical reality amidst precarious urban, political and economic formations? How has middle-class been translated into a technical object of scrutiny, becoming the language that informs state- and market-led interventions? What new forms of aspirations and desires crystallize as people craft ways to live beyond poverty, and how do they reshape entrenched ideas of stratification and distinction in Latin America? Bringing together historical and ethnographic accounts on what calls middle-classes into existence, we reflect on the politics and poetics of its emergence and effacement as a lived, multifaceted category of Latin-American scholarship.

Sub Track

• Culture, Power and Political Subjectivites

Session Organizer

• Moisés Kopper, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies

Chair

• Sergio E Visacovsky, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales-IDES/CONICET

Presenters

• Cecilia Guemes, Grupo de Investigación en Gobierno, Administración y Políticas Públicas GIGAPP

• Azun S Candina Polomer, University of Chile

• Abel Ricardo Lopez, Western Washington University

• Claudia Stern, Tel Aviv University

• Moisés Kopper, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies

• Ludolfo Paramio, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

Discussant

• David S Parker, Queen's University