American Anthropological Assn Annual Meeting
Nov. 15-19, 2006
San Jose, CA

Organizers:
Csilla Kalocsai, Yale University
Laurie Duthie, UCLA
Carrie Lane Chet, Cal State Fullerton

Anthropological scholarship on corporate globalization and capitalist restructuring has frequently concerned only the lower classes, whereas sociological work on transnational corporate classes has focused on the top tiers of the corporate hierarchy. Yet middle-class life as it relates to corporate work remains relatively unexplored, particularly outside of North America and Western Europe. This panel uses global corporate work as a starting point for understanding these new middle-class segments, and moves beyond the workplace to consider how the middle classes created and transformed under global capitalism take on broader social meanings that are deeply entwined with national, local and global contexts and experiences.

Focusing the ethnographic lens on the middle-class work of managers, white-collar executives, and professionals throughout the world, we ask: Are we witnessing the emergence of a new global corporate middle class? How have the globalization of labor and capital produced and transformed the structure and content of middle-class lifestyles? How do gender, race, and generation affect how members of the new middle classes understand and experience corporate globalization? What are the patterns of inclusions and exclusions that structure corporate middle-class livelihoods? How have cultural values, practices, strategies, and social relations changed in the process? How do social and political-economic discourses on the changing middle class and the intensification of global capitalism intersect at the national and transnational levels? Why has anthropological scholarship on corporate globalization tended to dismiss the existence and experiences of the middle class and how has this omission shaped the field to date?

Interested scholars should submit a paper abstract of up to 250 words to Carrie Lane Chet by March 17, 2006 at cchet@fullerton.edu. Feel free to email or call (714-278-7359) for additional information.