Title: Common Sense and the Collaborative Production of Class
Abstract:In the USA, economic inequality, while arguably one of the most material sites of `difference', is often one of the least visible. The presence and meaning of class in daily life may be more vague tha...In the USA, economic inequality, while arguably one of the most material sites of `difference', is often one of the least visible. The presence and meaning of class in daily life may be more vague than at any other time in US history. This article examines how commonsense knowledge about class leads people to engage in practices that systematically disorganize the presence of social and economic capital. The over-arching analytical framework builds a performative analysis of class by situating the personal agency of talk within broader cultural discourses that shape and constrain possibilities for talk. I draw from ethnomethodology and post-structural discourse analysis to analyze talk about class in 1600 pages of transcript from interviews with 23 people. By linking the interpretive practices of talk in interviews to the circulation and repetition of cultural knowledge in discourses, I demonstrate how class identities are constituted through conditions not generally associated with economic processes.Read More
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-10-29
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 9
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot