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Title Middle-Class Anxiety and Moderate Prosperity: South Africa and China in Comparative Perspective
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1885/280320; https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/280320/3/Middle-class%20anxiety.pdf.jpg
Date 2020
Author(s) Abraham, Ibrahim; Liu, Shuhan
Abstract This article presents the first comparative study of the middle class in Africa and China, drawing on published research from both regions, furnished with analysis of popular culture and ethnographic insights from research on South Africa's new black middle class. This study explores four topics of theoretical and empirical significance. Firstly, definitional debates about the qualitative and quantitative classification of the middle class, including the appropriateness of the term in (South) Africa and China. Secondly, the appropriation of the Chinese concept of xiaokang (moderate prosperity) for the study of Africa. Thirdly, anxiety over social and economic status, related in particular to distinctions between strata within the middle class, building on a distinction between middle-class moderate prosperity and middle-class affluence. Fourthly, anxiety over contradictions between emerging individual desires and traditional familial commitments, impacting South Africa's moderately prosperous in particular, with broader cultural implications for emerging African and Chinese modernities. - Abrahams research in South Africa was funded by the Academy of Finland through the research grant The ordlity of Success arnung the En1erging Black Middle Class in South Atrica (Chief Investigator: Tuulikki Pietila); Liu s period as a Visitor at s Hurnanities Research Centre was funded by Shanxi niversity s School of Philosophy and Sociology.
Language en_AU
Publisher African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific
Type of publication Journal article
Format application/pdf
Source Australasian Review of African Studies; 10.22160/22035184/aras-2020-41-2/5-26
Rights © 2020 The authors
Identifier 1447-8420
Repository Canberra - Australian National University
Added to C-A: 2023-01-16;08:53:36