Middle-Class Déjà Vu: Conditions of Possibility from Victorian England to Contemporary Kathmandu

Abstract

Although the term “middle class” is often invoked, almost never is the concept defined or theorized in any systematic, coherent manner. What is a middle class or middle-classness? Is there one middle class or many? How are we to understand relationships between middle-class formations in different times and places? Combining perspectives from both anthropology and history, this paper tries to address the problem of how it is that we can call groups “middle class” even if they are culturally very different and separated widely in time and space. How do we conceptualize “middle class” theoretically to account for both what is similar, and what is different? Drawing on the concept of “conditions of possibility”, this paper offers a historical and spatial model of middle class formation, one that attempts to theorize the formation of middle classes, and the emergence of differences between them, in terms of historical processes and patterns of inter- and intra-class spatialization. This involves conceptualizing the emergence of middle classes in the context of global capitalism while also avoiding the teleological reduction that labels some middle-class cultures as merely derivative of others.