Operationalising Class as a Methodological Tool

As the previous chapter outlined, there is little (albeit gradually expanding) sociological research which focuses on middle-class practices. There is thus also little empirical advice to tap into in terms of how best to approach participants as explicitly middle class. Moreover, since I suggest that class is relational and lived, this leads to the issue of how class can be defined empirically and, in practical terms, for recruitment. In order to address this problem, it is useful to briefly define class methodologically. Bourdieu and Wacquant argue that:

[s]ocial groups, and especially social classes, exist twice, so to speak, and they do so prior to the intervention of the scientific gaze itself: they exist in the objectivity of the first order, that which is recorded by distributions of material properties; and they exist in the objectivity of the second order, that of the contrasted classifications and representations produced by agents on the basis of a practical knowledge of these distributions such as they are expressed in lifestyles. (2013: 296)

‘Class is structural’ (Skeggs 1997: 94), and likewise identities are classed. While identities cannot be ‘read’ as fixed to an objective social position, they are, however, ‘responses to social positions’ (ibid.). In other words, identities are reactive. They are reflexively

articulated within classed structures. Experiences are not ‘transparent concomitants of the social category they are allocated to’ (Ball et al 2004: 481). As such, individuals do not belong to the category of middle class in a neat and straightforward way. This research does not have the scope to identify the multiple fractions and diverse intersecting fault lines within the British class system, nor is it driven to measure class, in order to identify a coherent group of ‘middle-class’ participants. Its focus, rather, is to identify participants who are loosely positioned in the middle to upper reaches of classed social space. The question is less: “how can this research speak about the ‘middle classes’?” and more: “how does the possession of capital generate the capacity to enact legitimised classed identities in relation to food, and how does this relate to conceptions of the middle-class habitus?” Keeping in mind the ways in which identity relates to classed positionality, which itself is related to volume and composition of capital, a demographic questionnaire which captured resource- based categorisation acted as a useful means to identify participant resources and therefore their structural classed position.

3.2.1 Demographic Questionnaire

As well as asking about information such as age, ethnicity, and household composition, this questionnaire (see Appendix 1) adopted a simple class framework developed from

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Bourdieu’s use of capital. This was to contextualise those as having a rich stock of economic and institutionalised cultural capital as being appropriate individuals to take part. Robson and Butler (2001) identify that middle-class ‘asset’ deployment and cultural reproduction is within four core fields: housing, employment, consumption, and education. For the purposes of researching domestic consumption, a demographic questionnaire assisted in analytically identifying levels of affluence across a range of capitals in relation to these fields. This acted as an initial proxy for identifying the classed positionality of participants. Capturing the relationality of habitus to the field, the questionnaire was a starting point for understanding how possession of capital relates to the operationalisation or formation of class. The

questionnaire covered occupational criteria, education histories, housing status, and household income. I will address here each of these criteria in turn.

While it is important to move beyond locating class in ‘occupational blocks’ (Savage et al 2013: 27), occupation can be a relevant proxy for participants’ trajectory across social space (Friedman 2015). Bar one, all participants in this research were professionals or managers. These occupations can be associated with high volumes of capital: they combine education, income, and occupational status, which can then be exchanged for cultural and economic capital. Relatedly, all participants, bar one, held higher education qualifications. Fourteen had postgraduate qualifications, and two held doctorates. In view of recognising that there are mechanisms of accumulation and exchange other than those directly related to labour market, the questionnaire also asked about household details. These included property ownership, property value, and household income as indicators of economic capital, a basic summary of which is detailed in Tables 3:1 and 3:2. Whilst a household measure of economic capital carries issues of gender inequality and may obscure household divisions, it is a useful way of assessing the economic capital available to individuals (Savage et al 2013).

Property Value All participants Participants in

employment

Retired participants

Property not owned/did not answer 2 2 0

Less than £125,000 1 1 0 £126,000 to £250,000 6 4 2 £250,001 to £500,000 14 9 5 £500,001 to £700,000 3 3 0 £700,001 to £925,000 1 0 1 Total participants 27 19 8

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Household income before taxes All participants Participants in

employment

Retired participants

Did not answer 1 1 0

Less than £15,000 1 0 1 £15,001-£30,000 2 1 1 £30,001-£45,000 4 1 3 £45,001-£60,000 7 5 2 £60,001-£75,000 3 3 0 £75,001-£100,000 4 4 0 £100,001-£150,000 4 3 1 £150,001-£200,000 1 1 0 Total participants 27 19 8

Table 3:2 Household Income before taxes as estimated by the participants

Participants were not selected on the basis of the data collected via the questionnaire, rather they completed the questionnaire during our initial research interaction, and the questionnaire was used as a tool to monitor recruitment as I will outline below. From the questionnaires, I established that participant’s levels of capital suggest that they could be loosely categorised into various positions within middle to upper layers of social space. This provided an ideal starting point from which to proceed to uncover the subtle yet complex ways which the food practices of those in middle-class positions relate to legitimised

identities. Prior to outlining how I initially set out to recruit participants who were affluent in capital, I will first look towards the issues around class subjectivity.

3.2.2 Self-Defining Class

The questionnaire identified a participant’s structural class location as a starting point from which to explore the relationship between positionality and identity. As such, it did not ask participants to self-define their subjective class position. Exploring how people evoke perceptions of their class position has methodological difficulties (Payne and Grew 2005). A number of studies have found that respondents did not readily define themselves as

belonging to a particular class (Ball 2003; Bennett et al 2009; Devine 2004; Payne and Grew 2005; Savage et al 2001; Skeggs 1997). Payne and Grew (2005; see also Savage et al 2001) found that participants were happy to discuss class in general terms but were reluctant to apply the concept to themselves. Instead participants invoked classed criteria to talk about class, without using the label ‘class’ (Payne and Grew 2005: 901). In Britain, class carries

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ideological baggage (Savage et al 2015). For instance, Skeggs et al (2008) found that class positioning impacted on the extent to which respondents defined themselves in class terms, with those in working-class positions often disidentifying with class and those expected to be middle class defining themselves as such. On the contrary, Devine (2004, 2005) found that some British participants distanced themselves from the imagined characteristics of the middle classes: ‘of being conventional, boring, suburban and apolitical’ (Devine 2005: 150). Reay also notes that ‘large numbers of professional people are claiming a working-class identity when they are objectively middle class’ (2017: 7).

But whether or not an individual defines themselves in class terms, is, to an extent, irrelevant. This is because participants need not identify with class or even recognise the existence of class for class processes to operate (Bottero 2004: 989). Because of this, my research’s recruitment flyer (see Appendix 2) did not specifically request participation from the ‘middle classes’. Rather, it requested participation in a ‘research project exploring social class, identity, and food consumption in the home’. Given that this study qualitatively explores classed identities, only recruiting those who explicitly identify with being middle class could have potentially produced a bias of only recruiting those who recognise the existence of classed subjectivities. It ran the risk of potentially eliminating rich data relating to the complexities of class identity. Indeed, a number of participants were recruited who possessed a rich portfolio of capital, yet did not identify with being middle class, often preferring to anchor themselves in a working-class history. One of the main points I seek to explore in my research then, is how the life trajectory of those who, through possession of capital, may appear to be middle class is complex and varied as the analysis chapters will demonstrate.

The subtleties of class identities cannot be measured through demographic questionnaires; rather, operationalising the concept of habitus can reveal some classed aspects of identities. This is because habitus captures ‘an imprecise, fuzzy, woolly reality’ (Bourdieu and

Wacquant 1992: 23). It accounts for class as embodied in everyday practices, personal histories and dispositions as well as the multiple ways in which this relates to the social structures within which individuals are situated and move. Possession of capital does not determine class identity, but rather denotes the capacity to act, through opening up possibilities and increasing autonomy. Class identities come into being through talk and practice. It was through life histories, observations, and interview talk that the processes of

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class became apparent through food dispositions. That said, participant’s perceptions of class, and their senses of classed difference and similarity, were explored qualitatively at the end of our first research interaction. Following Savage et al (2001: 879), I had avoided specific questions about class before this point. This was to assess the extent to which the term ‘class’ emerged as relevant to the participants themselves in relation to the other topics covered thus far. Hereafter, in the concluding section of our first interview, participants were asked to talk about whether they felt they belong to a social class, and whether they felt like they belonged to a social class when they were growing up. It is

important to be open to the fact that subjective class perspectives are different, because this in itself shows class is relative and multidimensional. Directly talking about class identity produced rich responses which could then be analysed in relation to participants’ past and present food practices and perceptions. Particularly revealing is how participants articulated a reluctance and ambivalence to situate themselves as belonging to a particular class, yet clearly related to class in their life histories. Moreover, while actively avoiding belonging to the category of middle class, participants employed a number of classed terminologies and markers to in order to locate their food practices as distinct. These direct questions about class and identity were fundamental in highlighting the complex relationship between class identity and positionality.