Paper short abstract:

This presentation aims at questioning the categorization of the “African middle class” by realizing the history of the Ethiopian “middle class” as a statement. This paper will attempt to discuss whether the use of a “classe objet” as a category of analysis is legitimate and what this use involves.

Paper long abstract:

The idea of an Ethiopian "middle class" is deriving from external configurations. This presentation will be tracing the history of the Ethiopian "middle class" as a statement : what produces the "class", who is naming what, which terminology is used, since then and for which purposes?

It aimed at analyzing the external processes of categorization of the "African middle classes" (see WB, ADB, IMF) as well as the internal categorization process occurring within the Ethiopian society (with a particular attention to semantic changes in social categorization in Ethiopian history). It will be shown that what connects these external and internal categorizations is primarily the way they relate to the future (envisioned as a desirable future) and their connection to the same vision of development.

My fieldwork (100 interviews with potential members of an Ethiopian "middle class") will give an input in the way this category has not been appropriated by its theoretical members. In this context, the "middle class" is a typical "classe objet" (Bourdieu, 1977), in the sense that it is qualified from the outside but is not performed by its members.

Finally, this presentation will discuss whether the use of the "classe objet" as a category for analysis is legitimate, relevant and what it involves. To what extent is it possible to study the African middle class without naturalizing or reifying this category?