THE MIDDLE CLASS AS A FIELD OF ETHNOLOGICAL STUDY

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THE MIDDLE CLASS AS A FIELD OF ETHNOLOGICAL STUDY

Joel S. Kahn*

Joel S. Kahn is Professor of Anthropology at the School of Sociology and Anthropology, La Trobe University, Bundoora Campus, Victoria, Australia. He has authored several books, including Constituting the Minangkabau: Peasants, Culture and Modernity in Colonial Indonesia, Minangkabau Social Formations: Indonesian Peasants in the World Economy, and edited, with Francis Loh Kok Wah, Fragmented Vision: Culture and Politics in Contemporary Malaysia

For some time we have lagged behind Indonesian stratificatory realities under the impression, once quite true, that the middle classes (or whatever we choose for the moment to call them) were too minute to make a difference. Now, suddenly, when they appear to be making some difference, or anyway are substantial enough to compel notice, we are at a loss to figure out who exactly they are, why they are important, and what difference they actually make.

(Lev,1990:25)

Daniel Lev's remarks about Indonesia are doubly true in the Malay-sian context, for in spite of the well-documented growth of, if anything, a relatively larger middle class, as yet there has been remarkably little interest among social scientists in the phenomenon. With a handful