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The Trouble with Class

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2013

James G. Carrier
James G. Carrier*
Affiliation:
Oxford Brookes University, Indiana University and Max-Planck-Institute of Social Anthropology [[email protected]].
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Abstract

This article considers aspects of the use of class in sociology and anthropology since the period around 1970, when Neo-Marxism became important in the social sciences, and is concerned primarily with Marxist and Weberian uses of the concept. It considers changes in the use of class in terms of two dimensions. One is the degree to which class is placed in a more macroscopic or more microscopic frame. The other is the degree to which class is defined in more objectivist terms or relies more on the way that the people being studied use the term. It is argued that since around 1970 writing on class has tended to become more microscopic and subjectivist. This tendency is related to changes within the two disciplines and within society more generally. The article closes with a consideration of some of the costs of this changing scholarly orientation to class.

Keywords

ClassThe cultural turnNeoliberalismPostmodernismPolitical economyClasseTournant culturelNéolibéralismePost-modernismeÉconomie politiqueKlasseDer cultural turnNeoliberalismusPostmodernePolitische Ökonomie
Type
Research Articles
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , December 2012 , pp. 263 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2012

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