Privilege and Uncertainty: Life in a New Delhi Middle Class Neighborhood

My research is based on a case study of a middle class neighborhood in New Delhi that was established in the mid 1960s as a retirement community for government officials. Based on ethnographic work I investigate the intersection between the history of the neighborhood and the life course of its residents. My research addresses the impact of the changes in the Indian political economy on the neighborhood, and how different types of capital are accumulated and deployed as the owners/residents make the transition from public officials to private citizens. By incorporating the spatial (neighborhood based) and temporal (neighborhood history and the residents’ life course) I enhance our understanding of middle class experience in the Global South and contribute to the theoretical formulations of the middle class in terms of its contradictory class location and its relative advantage with respect to certain types of capital.