Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

CULTURAL RELATIONS AND THE NEW RICH 9
lifestyle and consumption would seem to be crucial. This is of particular
significance here, where, as various contributors to this and other volumes in the
series indicate, the new rich of Asia are commonly identified with the middle class,
or are noted for their structural heterogeneity. The importance of the conceptual
distinction between class and status is brought out further, in relation to this
volume, in Weber’s reference to the parvenu who has property, but is not fully
accepted by established high-status groups (Gerth and Mills 1970:192). This is
precisely the lot of many new rich in Asia, and lies behind the usually deprecatory
label, nouveaux riches.
The second way in which the concept of status honour may contribute to an
understanding of class and culture, and, more particularly, to our understanding of
the new rich, is by providing a conceptual means for recognising groups and
identities that do not correspond to classes, but which have consequences for them,
and may be partly understood in relation to them. Of most importance here are the
cultural identities of ethnicity, nation and gender, according to which Asia’s new
rich are often variously understood. As argued below, it is the cultural construction
of the new rich in terms of ethnic or ethno-nationalist identities that has commonly
been so important to the hegemonic positions they are coming to assume.
The most important conceptual development in the literature on these various
forms of status honour has involved a shift in focus away from groups or
communities as such, to the symbolic construction and maintenance of the social
boundaries that separate, and hence define, them (Barth 1969; Cohen 1985;
Lamont and Fournier 1992; Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992; Vermeulen and Govers
1994). 13 While these conceptual developments may have occurred in reference to
ethnicity, race, nation and gender, they also provide a useful way of dealing directly
with the social and cultural relations of class. Inasmuch as the class experience
entails the differential evaluation of people, and the creation of varied identities,
lifestyles and groups, all in a relational or dialogical context, the concept of
symbolic boundary is particularly useful. Most ethnographic and historical
accounts dealing with culture and class have not only been limited to the West, but
have also tended to concern themselves with describing distinctive ways of life
variously circumscribed by work relations, income, occupational prestige,
educational status or place of residence. 14 For the most part, they have not focused
on the social relations or symbolic boundaries through which these groups or
classes acquire their distinctiveness. One important exception is Frykman and
Lofgren’s (1987) account of the ways in which members of the Swedish
bourgeoisie cultivated a lifestyle and moral code through which they were able to
distinguish themselves from, and elevate themselves above, the old elite and
peasantry. Bourdieu’s (1989) work on class and taste in France is another
exception which is dealt with later in the chapter, as is Lamont’s (1992) study of the
upper middle class in France and the United States. 15
The positions occupied by Asia’s new rich are not simply to be understood in
reference to the internal class relations and social organisation of the nation-states
to which they belong. Their existence is premised on the structures and growth of