Current Students and Staff

IAS Seminar: Identity Investments

• 29 May 2024
• 12pm-1pm
• International House and Zoom webinar
• Event website

About this event

IAS Seminar: Identity Investments: Middle-class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile

Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) Visiting Fellow Professor Joel Stillerman will deliver a seminar on their research.

This presentation provides an overview of conceptual and empirical arguments from the book 'Identity Investments'. It uses the concepts of identity investments and precarious privilege to understand Chile’s middle classes in contrast to other studies that emphasise opportunity hoarding and social mobility. Identity investments are deeply held values that motivate middle-class market behaviour.

The presentation will explore the identity investments of four middle-class groups – activists, moderate Catholics, youngsters, and pragmatists, which differ in ideological orientation, age cohort membership, economic position, and residential location. Precarious privilege explains that identity investments reflect Chilean middle class families’ economic vulnerability as neoliberal policies generate job instability. Middle class families’ resources, political and ideological affiliations, age cohort membership, and neighbourhood residence explain variations in their identity investments. The study relies on interviews, participant observation, and photographs of homes in two Santiago, Chile communities and its results offer insights into Chile’s dramatic political changes.

Please arrive from 11.45am for a 12pm start. For those joining in person, lunch will be served after the seminar from 1pm.