Paper short abstract:

This paper will present the preliminary findings of an ongoing research on the construction of middleclassness in Bucharest. It focuses on the moral values embedded in the meanings and usages of objects given to charity in acts of compassion by persons who aspire/identify themselves as middle-class

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an ongoing research on middleclassness and morality in Romania's capital, Bucharest. More specifically, it explores the meanings and usages of objects that are given to charity in acts of compassion by persons who aspire to be/identify themselves as middle-class. The latter has been approached anthropologically from different angles, commodity consumption featuring as the main marker of middle-class identity in much of the literature. Having this in mind, this paper considers middle class as a cultural practice, a process in the making, and takes into account the role of culture in social life while also inscribing the practice in the context of unequal distribution of power and resources between classes. Furthermore, the Romanian scene is one in which class talk, as in many post-socialist contexts, has been approached with a general reluctance and, when used, class has been more of a gradational concept rather than a relational one. The paper's argument is grounded in a material culture perspective, according to which objects are important and express values in a manner which is not possible in areas of explicit formulations. It is precisely their 'humility', their capacity of fading out of focus and, yet, silently determining expectations and behaviours, quietly pointing out the normative, that accounts for their importance. Thus, focusing on 'objects of compassion', on seemingly unimportant (given) objects, e.g. a pair of socks or coloured crayons, has enabled an unexpected access to the moral values of middle classed persons.