MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02918cam a2200349 i 4500
001 2014023241
003 DLC
005 20151124080240.0
008 140623s2015 caua b 001 0 eng c
010 $a 2014023241
020 $a9780520277748 (cloth : alk. paper)
020 $a0520277740 (cloth : alk. paper)
020 $a9780520277755 (pbk. : alk. paper)
020 $a0520277759 (pbk. : alk. paper)
040 $aCU-S/DLC$beng$cCU-S$erda$dDLC
042 $apcc
043 $an-us-nj
050 00 $aHN79.N53$bS6155 2015
082 00 $a305.5/509749$223
100 1 $aHeiman, Rachel,$eauthor.
245 10 $aDriving after class :$banxious times in an American suburb /$cRachel Heiman.
264 1 $aOakland, California :$bUniversity of California Press,$c[2015]
300 $axix, 288 pages :$billustrations ;$c24 cm
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 257-274) and index.
520 $a"A paradoxical situation emerged in the late 1990s: the dramatic upscaling of the suburban American dream, even as the possibilities for achieving and maintaining it diminished. Driving After Class explores middle-class anxieties and suburban life during those years. Drawing on nineteen months of ethnographic research in a suburban New Jersey town as McMansions sprouted up next to subdivisions of moderately sized colonial-style homes and infrastructural essentials like schools and roads became overburdened, each chapter throws into relief subtle gradations within the middle class and among middle-class sensibilities, and brings to life the ways that people were reorienting themselves--both consciously and unconsciously--to the discursive and material displacement of postwar liberal approaches to middle-class life in favor of newly dominant neoliberal logics. The ethnographic moments illustrated in the book, drawn from fieldwork in people's homes, their town hall, and their SUVs, reveal the ways that efforts to appease feelings of insecurity--whether through place-making practices, childrearing strategies, or 'had-to-have' purchases--often made people (and their neighbors) feel and be less secure. The economics and cultural politics of the constellation of these ways of being, which I have termed 'rugged entitlement,' ended up steering many children, youth, and parents into ambivalence about the structuring and texture of their everyday lives: it is exhausting work to be strategically and persistently driving after class. But more often than not, unable to imagine the possibility of crafting another way of life, most curbed these unsettling doubts and resolutely fueled up for the ride"--Provided by publisher.
650 0 $aSocial classes$zNew Jersey.
650 0 $aSuburban life$zNew Jersey.
650 0 $aMiddle class$zNew Jersey.
651 0 $aNew Jersey$xSocial conditions.