Biographies of privilege: Spatiotemporal structures of upper-class formation

Abstract

The point of departure for the study is the central emphasis placed on biographical experiences for elucidating processes of group formation in sociological theory. The study devotes specific attention to contextualized accounts of class biographies in both time, space and according to the dynamics of class fractions. Class analysis often relies on temporal snapshots, disregards intra-class variation, and abstracts class reproduction away from the spatialized contexts in which much social life is played out. Notwithstanding the growing attention devoted to both space and class fractions in recent contributions, a key argument in the study is that these matters remain insufficiently linked to temporal dynamism and life course variation. Thematically, the articles deal with three biographical features that are anticipated to promote homogenized experiences along class divisions; in addition to the conventional interest in intra- and intergenerational class immobility, the study adds ‘contextual immobility’ as indicated by the degree to which one’s neighbourly environment is reproduced over time.