5: What Do I Wear, and Do I Eat Their Food? Performing Middle Classness

Studies of class and social stratification have been useful in facilitating our understanding of how inequality manifests. Most of these studies have, however, focused on how inequality is expressed or experienced from the perspective of gender, race and region. Again, as indicated in the earlier chapters, Black middle class studies in South Africa have focused mainly on income, occupation and education, while less attention has been given to subjective measures in the research process. This chapter focuses on this latter theme in terms of the impact of physical appearance, dress and other personal matters of the interview process.

In the Power of looks: social stratification of physical appearance, Berry (2016) argues that, individuals who do not display the finest outfits, or those whose appearance does not fit the norm, experience prejudice and discrimination. She further asserts that looks matter because “we gain and lose social power depending on our physical appearance” (Berry, 2016, p. 12). In addition, dress has been defined as a collection of adjustments used to “communicate and enact various identities” (Johnson, Lennon, & Rudd, 2014; Kang, Sklar, & Johnson, 2011). Thus, how one is dressed is an attempt at constructing and communicating a certain self-identity. Together with this, one’s actions in social settings, including decisions regarding accepting food, a ride or other “favors”, is influenced by the individual’s assumptions, beliefs, perceptions and feelings about themselves and those they are interacting with (Johnson et al., 2014). This chapter will, therefore, show how team members manoeuvred around such subjective measures during interviews with participants, particularly how decisions around dress, food and transport were negotiated. It will also reveal the relevance of gender in this process, and the discomforts experienced since women’s and men’s encounters during interviews are different.