Class clues: felt heirarchies of class on two Essex districts

• Main Author: Scott, James J
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Essex 2013

This thesis examines the ways in which social class has repercussions for people's quotidian interactions through the evaluations they make about themselves and others. The setting for this research is two districts in the county of Essex and differently deprived small areas within them. Rather than being a homogeneous county, as is often suggested through the employment of stereotypical representations, 1 show how class and place are mutually constitutive and integral to the boundaries drawn between these small areas of Essex by residents. Bourdieusain concepts of habitus, capital and field - especially habitus - are employed in the presentation of a theoretical framework which speaks of the classed, hierarchical evaluations we all make in our everyday lives as 'felt hierarchies of class'. This is an individualized framework that we each carry with us and use as a point of reference to guide our understandings of others; we 'class' others and place them at 'appropriate' paints in our felt hierarchy of class relative to ourselves and others, a process triggered by the meanings that particular 'class clues' hold for us. The thesis argues that individual perception, filtered by the habitus, is centra! 10 class positioning and judgement. Moreover, the class categories often imposed by academics upon people are less valuable to our understanding of how people feel about class than the positions in felt hierarchies that people allocate to themselves and others and reference in future evaluations. If we wish to understand the current relationship between people and class then we must highlight individualized meanings and place participants at the centre of research. The classing process is multifaceted and class clues are ripe with meaning which allow us to infer much about others and understand our classed selves. The thesis aims to shed light upon the complexities of everyday classing practice.