Um condomínio chamado Brasil: trajetórias e percepções de uma camada média urbana na cidade do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This work investigated an urban middle class, resident of the Pechincha neighborhood, in Jacarepaguá, seeking to understand their processes of social mobility and the effects of the recent crisis on their living conditions and their own representations on social position. For that, a qualitative research was carried out, composed by participant observation and individual in-depth interviews with 28 people living in a typical neighborhood condominium. As a result, it has been that the trajectories of these people are related to the movement of social ascension observed in the country in the 2000s. their coming to the neighborhood and to the condominium is a reflection of their upward mobility, which occurred in the previous decade. Participants in the research identify themselves as belonging to an intermediate stratum in the social structure, often termed "middle class" and related terms. As elements of belonging are triggered access to some types of consumer and leisure goods, such as own property and frequency (increasingly sparse) to cinemas and restaurants. Another important factor of belonging is the possibility of paying for private health services and, especially, primary and secondary education for their children. As a characteristic of the experience of belonging to a middle class, the perception of vulnerability, the symbolic proximity to the lower layers, and great importance attributed to the sphere of work, stand out as the only way to guarantee their living standards and the maintenance of their social standing. In the current context of crisis, which has affected Brazil since the 2014’s for now, these subjects reveal a profound insecurity about the possibility of remaining in this intermediate layer. Their effort consists in distancing themselves physically and symbolically from the most impoverished segments and also in investing in the education of their children, who are now the donators of their process of upward mobility.