What middle class? The shifting and dynamic nature of class position

Grace Khunou

Development Southern Africa, 2015, vol. 32, issue 1, 90-103

Abstract: Class categorisation should not only be informed by academic pursuits but by the lived experiences of those being categorised. A human or community-centred definition of class will illustrate the complexities of class experience and will thus present a dynamic conceptualisation. Through two life-history interviews of two black women from South Africa, this article illustrates that middle-classness for blacks during apartheid was marred with constant shifts related to the socio-economic and political impermanence of class position. Continuous negotiation driven by the need to be included in one's own community and the effects of being racially othered in interaction with whites and white spaces influences these shifts. In conclusion, the article argues that being middle class and black is heterogeneously experienced and thus complex.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2014.975889

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