The contested spaces of Chile's middle classes

Abstract

Recent discussions of how members of the middle classes define themselves have focused on cultural patterns, following Bourdieu's (1984) influential work on how occupational, educational, and cultural fields combine to configure classes. Researchers have extended this approach to studies of the emerging middle classes in the global South, adapting these concepts to the specific circumstances of postcolonial settings in a globalizing world. This chapter explores these processes among urban middle-class Chileans. I show how members of the middle classes seek meaningful identities while engaging in symbolic combat with other groups in a society historically marked by an aristocratic elite, a recent military dictatorship, and free market policies that have reconfigured the possibilities for upward and downward mobility while integrating Chile more firmly within global commodity and image circuits. The principal foci of conflict are cultural consumption, childrearing and education, as well as electronic media use. Members of Chile's middle classes are locked in an unresolved conflict over who they are, who they should be, and where they fit in the global cultural economy.

Citation

Stillerman, J. (2010), "The contested spaces of Chile's middle classes", Go, J. (Ed.) Political Power and Social Theory (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 209-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-8719(2010)0000021013