Collaborative Research: Social Mobility, Poverty Reduction, and Democracy in an Emerging Middle Class

最近的经济研究揭示了世界各地社会流动模式的重大变化。在美国和西欧，中产阶级在20世纪得到巩固。据观察，世纪的人口正在减少。相反，在巴西、印度和中国等国家，中产阶级以前并不占人口的很大一部分，但中产阶级却大幅增加。这些变化具有明显的经济重要性。然而，他们更广泛的社会和政治意义一直是很少严格研究的主题。这个比较人类学项目将解决这一差距。人类学家Marvin Benjamin Junge博士（纽约州立大学，新帕尔茨），Sean Mitchell博士（罗格斯大学）和Charles Klein博士（波特兰州立大学）将收集广泛的比较和纵向数据，以阐明新中产阶级历史性崛起的意义和后果。这项研究的结果不仅对社会科学理论具有重要意义，而且还将对政策产生重要影响，有助于我们理解经济增长、减少贫困和巩固民主之间的关系。研究将在巴西进行，巴西是全球发生这些变化的关键地点之一。在过去15年中，约有4 000万巴西人脱离了官方贫困分类。研究人员将在三个城市（福塔莱萨、里约热内卢和圣保罗）进行为期三年的研究，以了解巴西“以前的穷人”的社会、经济和地理流动性的意义、物质变化和身份。“在每个项目城市，研究人员将集中收集居住在一个家庭社区的人的密集数据。这些案例研究将结合联合收割机：（1）在新中产阶级个体体验和表达经济流动性的重要空间的参与者观察（例如，他们的社区，购物中心，教堂，公共汽车和地铁站，社区中心，娱乐场所，诊所和公共广场）;（2）基线户主调查（660名受试者）;（3）深入的年度访谈（每年130名受试者）。这些数据将有助于识别新中产阶级中的潜在亚群，并使研究人员能够纵向评估个人和社区如何应对国家和全球层面的经济和政治变化。

Recent economic research has uncovered major changes in patterns of social mobility throughout the world. In the United States and Western Europe, middle classes that consolidated during the 20th. century are now observed to be in decline. Conversely, in countries such as Brazil, India, and China, where middle classes did not previously comprise a significant segment of the population, middle classes have increased significantly. These changes are of obvious economic importance. However, their wider social and political significance has been the subject of little rigorous research. This comparative anthropological project will address this gap. Anthropologists Dr. Marvin Benjamin Junge (State University of New York, New Paltz), Dr. Sean Mitchell (Rutgers University), and Dr. Charles Klein (Portland State University) will collect wide-ranging comparative and longitudinal data to illuminate the significance and consequences of the new middle class's historic rise. Not only will the results from this study be important for social scientific theory, they also will have important policy implications, contributing to our understanding of the relationships between economic growth, poverty reduction, and the consolidation of democracy.The research will be carried out in Brazil, which is one of the key global sites where these transformations have been occuring. Over the past fifteen years, approximately 40 million Brazilians have exited official poverty classifications. The investigators will undertake a three-year study in three cities (Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo) to understand the meanings, material transformations, and identities associated with social, economic, and geographic mobility among Brazil's "previously poor." In each project city, the researchers will focus intensive data collection on people living in one home community. These case studies will combine:(1) participant observation in important spaces where new middle class individuals experience and express economic mobility (e.g., their neighborhoods, shopping malls, churches, bus and subway stations, community centers, recreational venues, health clinics, and public squares); (2) a baseline head of household survey (660 subjects); and (3) in-depth, annual interviews (130 subjects per year). These data will support the identification of potential subgroups within the new middle class and enable the researchers to assess longitudinally how individuals respond and communities to economic and political change at national and global levels.