Becoming Middle Class

This book is an ethnography of urban-to-urban migration and its role in middle-class formation in Ethiopia. Through an examination of the intersections and tensions between physical movement and social mobility, it considers how young Tigrayan people's migration between urban centres made them distinct from both international migrants and non-migrants. Based on fieldwork in Adigrat and Addis Ababa, it focuses on these young people's notions of progress, experiences of higher education and ethnic tensions to demonstrate how their movements enabled them to enhance their economic, social and symbolic capital while their cultural capital remained largely unchanged. The book provides new insights into the opportunities and constraints for upward social mobility and argues that the emergence of shared characteristics among urban-to-urban migrants led to the formation of a group that can be described as a middle class in Ethiopia.

Provides a unique ethnographic study of contemporary middle class formation that brings in migration as a key factor in the reproduction as well as contestation of privilege and inequality Uses the Ethiopian case to analyse patterns and social formations that are taking place across the Global South, providing a valuable new resource for a global audience of scholars Offers fresh scholarship moving away from a focus on poverty as a motivation for migration; instead examining middle class mobility in ways that should reshape perceptions of Ethiopia, and Africa more broadly Focuses on unique themes of higher education, ethnicity and notions of progress, which appeal to a wide international readership, including academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and other educated readers

Auteur

Markus Roos Breines is Assistant Professor in Social Science at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is currently based in Ethiopia. He authors articles on migration, mobilities, distance education, ethnicity and social media and has previously worked at the University of Edinburgh and the Open University, UK.

Contenu
Chapter 1 Introduction.- Chapter 2 Pursuing progress.- Chapter 3 Higher education and economic mobility.- Chapter 4 Being educated.- Chapter 5 Managing enhanced capital.- Chapter 6 Ethnic hierarchies.- Chapter 7 A middle class rooted in urban-to-urban migration.- Postscript.