Does The Black Middle Class Exist And Are We Members? by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, Anthropology
ISBN: 9781838673550
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Published: 2019-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

What is clear from the discussion above is that the researchers’ insiderness and outsiderness play an important part in impacting interviews with the Black middle class. The preconceived ideas, as discussed above illustrate how the team’s individual subjectivities influenced their initial ideas and actions towards the participants and the project. The working-class positions of Mabone, Polite and Lesego influenced their preconceived ideas about the Black middle class, differently from Leo’s middle class positioning. This is observable, for instance, in how ease of movement was facilitated by the fact that Leo drives his own car, among other middle class factors, which created an environment of comfort among the study participants.

The discussion above captures questions around the existence of the Black middle class and issues around the Blackness of the Black middle class; it illustrates how preconceived ideas were dealt with, and how, with contact, these ideas changed. What is worth noting is that encountering the Black middle class led to constant reflections by the team and important shifts away from uninformed bias towards an awareness of the existential realities of the members of the South African middle class. This shift is important as it allows the researcher to “hear and interpret the behaviour of others” (Fusch & Ness, 2015). This was mostly true for Mabone, Lesego and Polite, who illustrated how their narratives changed because of the interactions with the Black middle class respondents. Yet, in the chapter on a conceptual moving target, Leo also experienced an alteration in some biases he held about the Black middle class in South Africa, particularly his uncritical association of this demographic with indebtedness and conspicuous consumption. These shifts also illustrate how the outsider/insider dynamic is in flux, and how both manifest simultaneously. This is evident in Leo’s case. To some degree, Leo remains an outsider with regards to the extent of his access to the middle class position, but he remains implicated as a researcher.

Preconceived ideas about social phenomena and about research participants are unavoidable; therefore reflexivity matters. Reflexivity matters especially because preconceived ideas might cloud judgement, lead to biases during social research and most importantly dehumanise the study participants. Reflections of such preconceived ideas are especially important in studies of contested and difficult-to-define concepts like the Black middle class. This chapter provided a reflection on our team’s preconceived ideas about the study participants and shows that there are potential dangers when such preconceived notions are not critically reflected on. It also revealed that there are benefits in acknowledging the assumptions we hold about our research participants, reflecting on how they have impacted on our interaction with them, and what they mean for our findings. The chapter also argued that when unquestioned, preconceived ideas might constrain full engagement with research participants and restrain how researchers engross themselves in the interview process, thus limiting the type of data collected.

In conclusion, it is also important to note that an important factor in thinking about preconceived ideas is the insider/outsider dynamic and how it manifests simultaneously at times.

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