Being Middle-class in India: A Way of Life

This volume presents a range of aspects of Indian middle-class lifestyles after liberalisation through ethnographic case studies - ranging from Delhi upper middle class elites to Kolkata#xE2;#xAC;"s established middle class to recently upwardly mobile communities to Tamilnadu#xE2;#xAC;"s emerging industrial middle classes. Older patterns of upward mobility, of educational strategies and occupational choice are related to changing notions of what it means to be middle class today in the post-liberalisation world, and the external politics of class (urban restructuring, educational reform, privatisation of services etc.) that have transformed the lives of both the #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;old#xE2;#xAC;", largely salaried, middle-class as well as that of those who joined the middle classes more recently, are related to the tranformations the middle-class family, gender relations, businesses and occupations as well as consumption patterns are undergoing. The contributors will thus highlight various practices, institutions, beliefs and representations related to the Indian middle classes and ask what role representations of middle-classness play in the lives of contemporary Indian citizens.