Student Number: 0104318V -
MA research report -
School of Social Sciences -
Faculty of Humanities / The corporate middle class, or managers, occupies a contradictory class location
in capitalist relations of production. While they do not own the means of
production, this class stratum is not exploited like the working class. This class
position, however, is bound to be different for a black manager whose
advancement in the workplace may be due to government attempts to
economically empower black people to redress the injustices imposed by the
racially dominated social structure of the past. Through a Weberian
understanding of social stratification as based on class, social status and power,
this research aims to unearth how members of the African corporate middle class
understand their position and roles in South African workplaces and communities.
It also goes deeper to scrutinise the impact of this structural position on their
agency. It is shown that their contradictory class location is exacerbated by their
race.
African managers constantly negotiate their positions and roles in their
workplaces and communities. Indeed, while their managerial position affords
them spaces that they could not have occupied during the apartheid era, their
racial character lessens their ability to manoeuvre within these spaces. This can be
identified both in workplaces and communities. It is shown that their middle-class
status cannot be consolidated because of their perceived lower social status and
less power to influence decision making in their organisations. Furthermore, it is
shown that, although not all of the interviewees moved to middle-class areas,
there is an indication of alienation in previously white-only residential areas. This
is further exacerbated by expectations from their former communities and
members of their extended families. As a result of high levels of unemployment in
African communities, members of this group are actively contributing to uplift
members of their extended families.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/2063 |
| Date | 21 February 2007 |
| Creators | Modisha, Geoffrey |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 13259 bytes, 17828 bytes, 10529 bytes, 20859 bytes, 9925 bytes, 11304 bytes, 24697 bytes, 40597 bytes, 73930 bytes, 116244 bytes, 33044 bytes, 26074 bytes, 49589 bytes, 287699 bytes, 23650 bytes, 21395 bytes, 58372 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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