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。现在观察到世纪正在衰落。相反，在巴西、印度和中国等国家，以前中产阶级在人口中所占比例并不大，但现在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，它们更广泛的社会和政治意义却很少受到严格的研究。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分校）、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很重要，而且还将产生重要的政策影响，有助于我们理解经济增长、减贫和巩固民主之间的关系。这项研究将在巴西进行，巴西是全球发生这些转变的关键地点之一。过去十五年来，大约有 4000 万巴西人脱离了官方贫困分类。调查人员将在三个城市（福塔雷萨、里约热内卢和圣保罗）进行为期三年的研究，以了解巴西“以前的贫困人口”的社会、经济和地理流动性的含义、物质转变和身份。在每个项目城市，研究人员将重点收集居住在一个家庭社区的人们的大量数据。这些案例研究将结合：（1）对新中产阶级体验和表达经济流动性的重要空间（例如社区、购物中心、教堂、公交车和地铁站、社区中心、娱乐场所、诊所和公共广场）进行参与观察； (2) 户主基线调查（660 名受试者）； (3) 年度深度访谈（每年 130 个主题）。这些数据将支持识别新中产阶级中的潜在亚群体，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革。

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.