Paper short abstract:

Based on research among Venezuelan migrants in Buenos Aires doing 'essential work' during the global pandemic, this paper maps processes of class formation and political imaginaries of a 'middle classes' experiencing migration from a Left- to a Right-wing state with different authoritarian features

Paper long abstract:

This project explores the politics of class formation behind the shift from “low-skilled” to “essential” migrant work during the Covid-19 pandemic through the case of Venezuelan migrants in Argentina. From 2014 to 2019, Argentina’s government attracted over 150,000 'high-skilled' often middle-class Venezuelans, promising gainful employment. Yet, a recession and a political crisis produced by a growingly authoritarian right-wing government left many precariously employed and politically invisible in the informal and gig economy. The outbreak of Covid-19 brought Venezuelan migrants back to media and political attention as “essential” workers. Yet, how did “high-skilled” Venezuelans experience this new visibility? Did being on the “frontline” change or reinforce their perception of “skill”, “value”, and "class" in relation to work and social welfare?

Through a research among Venezuelan migrants in Buenos Aires, this SSRC/Wenner Gren funded project mapped their experiences during the pandemic. Triangulating survey, interviews and ethnographic findings, we show that the Venezuelan migration to Argentina is more varied in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, experiences and survival strategies than 'middle class' narratives portrayed it. ‘Essential workers’ especially in the platform and domestic work sectors are exposed to greater risk but also see lower levels of economic stability and labour autonomy. Yet, while perceptions of 'middle class' belonging had rather been used to lure and exploit a migration from a Left- to a Right-wing regime without the necessary labour and welfare protections, what unifies our research participants is a distaste for socialism but desire for free-marked enabled access to welfare services.

Paper short abstract:

To decipher the authoritarian shift taking place globally despite the liberalisation rhetoric, I examine how in recent Greek history middle-class subjects are shaped around homeownership against a parasitic “other”, and I look into the current implementation of governance through precarisation.

Paper long abstract:

To gain insight into the current authoritarian shift, taking place globally despite the rhetoric of economic and political liberalisation, I examine the ways in which liberal and authoritarian processes of subject formation intersect and overlap in recent Greek history.

I put forward a brief retrospect of the past seven decades in Greece, combining the insights of both political and subjective economy to scrutinise the relevant middle-class subject positions in each era. I take into account both objective and subjective aspects of middle-class formation, that is, both structural positions within productive processes and self-adscription through the symbolic practices of individuals. In different historical eras and through different modes of statecraft and capitalist development, the middle-class subject has been shaped within the context of possessive familialism, defined around property ownership and against a wasteful and parasitic “other”.

The aforementioned social contract began to break down with the 2010 debt crisis and the ensuing austerity program. Formal and informal sources of welfare were dismantled, and homeownership, the main signifier of middle class belonging, came under direct attack in the context of odious taxation and overindebtedness. This disruption is indicative of a broader shift away from both welfare capitalism and neoliberal governmentality, towards a new mode of governance through guilt and precarisation. I conclude that the current reaffirmation of reactionary values and the re-emergence of nationalism, racism and patriarchal values are not antithetical to the proliferation of individualism, competition and market mentalities, but a corollary to it.

Paper short abstract:

The increasing practices of private security, criminalisation, and support for punitivism by middle class citizens must be understood in the context of economic insecurity and neoliberalisation, as well as the historical displacement of a politicised notion of class during the Uruguayan dictatorship

Paper long abstract:

In recent decades, heated debates have erupted in Uruguay over the issue of (in-)security. The state's response to rising crime and the perceived sense of insecurity has been punitive: increased penalties and the introduction of criminal offenses have led to a steady rise in incarceration. Support for these measures has been particularly strong among the middle class, which has faced increasing precarity and economic insecurity. In the country that has long prided itself on its broad middle class, more and more people are experiencing the effects of neoliberalisation and are living with the constant fear of slipping into what has become known as new poverty. Today, middle class has become a fragile, and insecure category, often based on debt and an identity that can easily be lost when one is associated with marginality. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork my paper argues that the increasing practices of private security, discursive criminalisation along lines of race, class, and territory, and support for and demand of state punitivism by people describing themselves as middle class must be understood in this context of economic insecurity.

My paper further argues that by highlighting the historical roots of middle class as a depoliticised category and its ideological function, we can better understand how crime became a signifier of growing social and economic fractures since the displacement of a political notion of class by middle class as a contested and exclusive category must be seen as a result of the brutal dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s.

Paper short abstract:

In postsocialist Croatia, privileged access to mortgages has driven the emergence of a "new" property-owning middle class while consequences of predatory lending simultaneously marked it as "squeezed". Its relationship to the state is thus pervaded by a sense of discontent as well as entitlement.

Paper long abstract:

Recent anthropological work notes a complex relationship between mortgaged homeownership and the middle class understood as the asset-owning class. Financialization is seen as fueling the rise of “new”, upwardly mobile middle classes in the Global South while destabilizing their “squeezed” counterparts in the North. The unique articulation between mortgaged homeownership provision and the middle class in Croatia does not fit neatly either of the established accounts. In socialist Yugoslavia, a “middle stratum” defined in terms of education and profession was associated with the use of public housing rather than homeownership. The link between mortgaged homeownership and the middle class has emerged with the shift to a a “superhomeownership” housing regime in the postsocialist period. This initially took an implicit form of credit scoring models and state housing subsidy programmes that gave the middle class privileged access to mortgages, in particular during the 2000s mortgage and housing boom. The link started to be explicitly articulated after the boom when consequences of predatory lending became visible and a wider public narrative about the Croatian middle class as the victim of post-boom recession and austerity emerged. Croatia’s first boom-bust cycle of mortgage finance has thus made the middle class a property-owning class, but also, depending on context, a threatened, contestational or uncertain class. Its relationship to the state is pervaded by a sense of discontent as well as legitimate entitlement. Distressed mortgagors developed an institutional brand of activism and politics while the wider middle class is being recruited for various political projects.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how Russia’s new middle classes have been forging their relationships with the state characterized by “strategic autonomy.” It investigates how this orientation has been shaped by the neoliberal welfare restructuring and the configuration of Russia’s political economy.

Paper long abstract:

The paper follows the case of the new consumption policies in Russia introduced by the government in 2014 amid the economic downturn. It explores how the resilient reactions of the new middle classes to the new policies and the economic crisis can be construed as part of their broader relationships with the Russian state. These relationships have been forged within the new middle classes’ positionalities and biographical experiences and mediated their responses to state policies and politics. In particular, the analysis describes the tendency of the new middle classes to subjectively disentangle their lives from the larger developments in the country, which is conceptualized as their “strategic autonomy.” The paper emphasizes the importance of the post-soviet trajectories of the new middle classes for configuring this orientation. It specifically explores how these trajectories have been shaped by the neoliberal restructuring of the welfare system and the reconfiguration of Russia’s political economy as it became increasingly state-controlled within the framework of the authoritarian political regime. It is argued that the Russian state has been increasingly divesting itself from responsibility for the social reproduction of its citizens. The new middle classes, in their turn, have embraced self-reliance and individualized managing strategies while withdrawing their demands and expectations towards the state. The paper explores how these orientations came to be incorporated into the reproduction of Russia's authoritarian regime while also reflecting on the current developments related to the war and its economic consequences.