Faces of privilege. Elites and affections in New Delhi (1975-2015)
Keywords:
Elites, privilege, affection, neoliberalism, capital.Abstract
This essay is part of a broader anthropological history regarding the elites and privilege, linked to capital and class, gender and difference, in neoliberal and nationalist, plutocratic and populist times. The project began as the ethnography and history of a specific high school generation, “the class of 1979,” at the ‘Modern School,’ a co-ed institution that embodies the elite status in the heart of New Delhi. Since then, this study has expanded to include varied encounters with agents of power, from fund managers and their capitalist clientele, to bureaucrats, lawyers, journalists and academics. Considering the various ways of investigating the elites and their worlds, the study’s exploratory effort focuses on representations of privilege, displays of memory, proclamations of entitlement, economies of affection and the uses of capital, along with their present genealogies. In the context of the transitions from postcolonial development to neoliberal capitalism, throughout the final quarter of the 20th Century, a critical account is offered that intertwines ethnographic accounts, analytical emphases and anecdotal theory. This is also reflected in the style and structure of this essay, which weaves together sociological snapshots, everyday stories, anthropological vignettes and theoretical textures.
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- 2022-02-13 (2)
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