A Middle Class Community: Class formation and the building of a moral order

当代中国的社会结构出现了重大转变,一个新兴的中产阶级逐渐形成。在北京,我们采用民族志的方法对一个中产阶级的住宅小区进行了访谈,并分析小区之内道德秩序的构建:关键要素之一是对“公共”和“私人”的界定与协调。我们试图了解居民们常态下的日常生活,并考察他们内部的“微观政治学”。从如何恰当饲养宠物到区内居民的着装问题,由业主之间讨论的话题,了解到中产阶级如何在社区内打造一种新的生活方式。

Based upon an ethnographic study of a middle class residential community in Beijing，this paper is an attempt to understand the process of the formation of this middle class. The focus of this paper will be placed on the construction of a moral order in a middle class residential community. A crucial component of this moral order is the negotiation of the boundary between public and private. Such negotiation involves mutual respect and the acceptance of shared norms and expectations. The residents of the community are learning to express themselves freely as well as to accommodate differences. This ethnographic study is an attempt to look at the residents’everyday life and to examine the“micro-politics”of the middle class. Through understanding their daily conversation and discussion on mundane issues， we shall see how the emerging middle class is forming a lifestyle and a moral order in their community.

吕大乐； 刘硕

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