Mobility haunted by class? Book review: Stepping Into the Elite: Trajectories of Social Achievement in India, France, and the United States by Jules Naudet. Oxford University Press, 2018

Abstract

Social mobility is a fascinating terrain of sociological investigations; nevertheless, a complex study on the narratives of protagonists of such ‘journeys’ is even more intriguing due to the insiders’ gaze, and how it informs the existing scholarship on the organizing principles and boundary-making processes of a society. In the age of polices brutalities against Afro Americans and the following Black Lives Matter movement in the US, last year’s Yellow vest protests in France, or the resurgent outcries of Dalit activists and the related street fights in Delhi and other Indian cities triggered by the physical brutalities of upper class men against Dalit women, prove that the theme is more relevant than ever. The French sociologist, Naudet’s book analyzes narratives of social mobility of individuals who experienced first-generation steep upward mobility, moving from ’rugs to the riches’ in three national contexts. India, France and the US, represent three different types of social stratification, understandings on class and mobility: these are presented in the book as a closed society (India), a class society (France) and an open society (the US) based on the structure of a society and the (non-)permeability of its class borders. Departing from Durkheim’s (1952) thoughts on anomie, a concept describing consequences of a sudden social change and Sorokin’s (1927) ideas that rapid social mobility leads to identity crisis and mental disorders, Naudet critically investigates diverse narratives of social mobility. For the author of the book, the main question is to obtain a better understanding of the individual coping strategies of success related to upward social mobility, rather than focusing merely on the tensions, identity crisis and costs of social mobility, this way broadening his research interest into new directions.