Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Zentrum für Transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien

Veranstaltet von

Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Veranstaltungsreihe

Ringvorlesung des Instituts für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, Querschnittsbereich Medialität und Intermedialität: Middle-Classness in Asia

Kurzbeschreibung

Rather than assuming a linear process or teleological history of middle classes, Liechty and others argue that classes and their histories are „unique manifestations of local material and social conditions - the socioeconomic conditions of possibility“ (Liechty 2012:275).

However, as there are many similarities and „déja-vu moments“ in the ways in which people recurrently behave in „class ways“, transnational comparative studies help us identify certain „regularities of response to analogous situations“ (ibid.:276). While their social lives, political affiliations and value orientations may differ quite drastically (Saavala 2010; Fernandes 2006), Saavala and others thus argue that we need to examine and compare how the „stylised images of the ‚Other’“ - the West, the poor as well as the rich - are constructed for the purpose of creating class difference, or, in Liechty’s words, the „discursive and performative production of middleness“ (Liechty 2012:271).

In this lecture series, the four overlapping lenses of

1) Family life, Bio Politics and Reproduction

2) Spatial Organization and Power Relations,

3) Middle-class Moralities, and

4) Relationships with the State

shall serve to analyse some of the key aspects of changing social relations, formations and practices of individuals or groups in Asia who understand themselves or aim to become „middle-class“. Scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds will shed light on the practices of middle-classness in Asia.

Referent_innen

Shilpa Phadke (Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai)

ZtG-Veranstaltungskategorie: Gender-Veranstaltungen der Institute/Fakultäten der HU