Middle Class Identities in a Neoliberal Age: Tensions between Contested Authenticities

Abstract

This paper explores in-depth interviews on aspects of middle class identity in a neoliberal age, taking the case of Chile's rapid and stark transition to a neoliberal economic model which was imposed by a dictatorship but later reproduced during democracy. 1 The paper reveals that there are no challenges to middle class identities (eg from the working class, or peasants). In this respect, these are neo-liberal middle class identities in that their way of thinking is preconditioned by market dominance. Informed by Bourdieu's views on class identities, this article emphasises the horizontal, non-hierarchical nature of contemporary class taste, and contributes to debates on stratification and culture, settling accounts with older class theory which perceives contests between the popular and middle classes. Notwithstanding this, however, I argue that processes of horizontal differentiation do involve tensions between cultural and moral boundaries. This article therefore also offers an alternative approach for exploring how middle class identities experience processes of individualization. It is argued that individualization processes should be placed in social and ethical registers as they could be in tension with various ways of understanding authenticity: being true to oneself or to one's origins.