The Politics of the Elite

Modesto Gayo is Full Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Diego Portales. He has developed research on inequalities regarding areas such as class politics and cultural capital. His most recent books are Upper Middle Class Social Reproduction (with Maria Luisa Mendez 2019), Clase y cultura. Reproducción social, desigualdad y cambio en Chile (2020), Fields, Capitals, Habitus. Australian Culture, Inequalities and Social Divisions (co-edited with Tony Bennett, David Carter, Michelle Kelly, and Greg Noble, 2021), and Clase y política en España I (1986–2008). Estructura social y clase media en la democracia postransicional (2021). María Luisa Méndez is Professor at Universidad Catolica de Chile and Director of the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). Her research interests include inequalities, social mobility, and urban conflicts. Her most recent book is Upper Middle Class Social Reproduction (with Modesto Gayo in 2019), along with several articles on territorial stigma and reputation, class and space, and contemporary forms of socio-spatial inequalities that have been published in journals such as Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Cities, and City and Community, among others.

1. Introduction; 2. Neoliberal political subjectivities; 3. Navigating through fragmented and ambivalent political ideologies; 4. Socialisation into politics; 5. Mothering the elites: raising political subjectivities; 6. Social trajectories; 7. Educational institutions as a key element in class constellations: Imprinting values, delineating trajectories within the upper middle class and beyond; 8. The politics of space; 9. Conclusions