Marketing the Self: The Politics of Aspiration among Middle-Class Silicon Valley Youth

Elsa Davidson
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Elsa Davidson: Brooklyn, NY, USA

Environment and Planning A, 2008, vol. 40, issue 12, 2814-2830

Abstract: I explore a contemporary politics of social reproduction among middle-class youth in Silicon Valley during the economic downturn subsequent to the tech boom of the 1990s. Drawing on ethnographic data collected at a public high school serving middle-class and affluent youth, I examine the relationship of the school and community environment to students' styles of self-cultivation and aspiration. In particular, I explore values and notions of success—such as freedom of expression, the pursuit of authentic passions, and conventional markers of academic and social achievement—that shape students' forms of self-discipline, self-definition, and aspiration. While arguing that young people's styles of self-cultivation suggest an entitled orientation toward work and life that may promote class privilege, I suggest that they also reflect a neoliberal politics of citizenship-shaping processes of social reproduction through schooling for middle-class youth. This politics of citizenship obligates middle-class youth to ‘package’ or market authentic personal traits to showcase their exceptional qualities, well-roundedness, and authentic originality, and to frame such acts in terms of personal choice. Linking such processes of subjectification to political–economic and social conditions, I ultimately argue that middle-class youth bear increasing responsibility for middle-class status. Moreover, I suggest that the pressures resulting from this burden and the ways in which young people negotiate them suggest a domestic politics of ‘hyper-vigilance’ that may transform young people's self-perceptions, attitudes towards schooling, and aspirations, while also potentially posing risks to youth.

Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:40:y:2008:i:12:p:2814-2830

DOI: 10.1068/a4037

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