Beber cerveja lite, vestir original, ser civilizado e distanciar-se dos molwenes: elite como reivindicação

Abstract

The present work analyzes the process of claiming belonging to an elite on a day-to-day basis from consumption practices and speeches about belonging. Elites have been studied under three perspectives. The first considers elites only those who are at the top of administrative organizations, and those associated with them, the second considers elites as those who are at the top of the organizational charts of bureaucratic organizations. It is a third perspective that considers elites as a group of people who present themselves as superior compared to others in the social context in which they find themselves. If, on the one hand, The first two perspectives make it possible to understand elites in the context of organizational charts and organizations, on the other hand, they lose sight of elites who establish themselves in daily life, outside the logic of administrative and or bureaucratic structure, unlike the third perspective that looks at these aspects. Based on data collected from an ethnographic work in the neighborhoods of Laulane, Ferroviário and Mahotas, I found that the participants of this study, in their daily lives, claim to belong to a higher category in relation to the others. That this claim is expressed in the discourse of belonging to a residential space called Spain, which is considered to be civilized compared to other nearby areas of residence, considered to be marginalized; consumption of newer and more expensive beer brands, compared to cheaper and cheaper beverages on the market, and the use of clothing, footwear and decorative objects such as watches from abroad and considered to be original, and which they are supposed to access in a way exclusive to the detriment of other people. The fact that the participants of the present study claim this superiority based on the expressions presented above allows us to consider that they are part of an elite, which on the one hand leads me to distance myself from the first two perspectives that reduce elites only at the top of the organization charts and organizations, and on the other hand reinforces the perspective that defends elites as a group of people who claim to be superior compared to others in the social context where they find themselves. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)