How do the inhabitants of the most privileged neighborhoods of big metropolises see the poor? How do they distance themselves (both physically and symbolically) from them? Should their representations of the urban poor be analyzed as part of traditional and national repertoires of action and justification or rather as molded by a globally homogeneous neoliberal frame? To provide some elements of answer to these questions, this presentation will draw on the Delhi part of a comparative research on upper-class and upper-middle-class residents of the most socially selective areas (both in the inner-cities and in the suburbs) of Paris, São Paulo and New Delhi. The paper will more particularly describe the articulation between five themes, whose possible mobilization as subjective reasons for self-segregation has been systematically tested in the interviews. These topics are: (1) insecurity and exposure to crime, (2) hygiene and the risks of contamination, (3) the attachment to a moral order that would need to be protected, (4) the naturalization (or racialization) of poverty, and (5) the various valuations of competition and merit vs. solidarity.
Jules Naudet is head of the “Politics and Society” division of the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, New Delhi. He holds a doctorate in Sociology from SciencesPo Paris. His previous research focused on a comparative analysis of the experience of upward social mobility in France, in India and in the United-States. His book “Entrer dans l’élite: Parcours de réussite en France, aux Etats-Unis et en Inde” was published in 2012 by the Presses Universitaires de France (a forthcoming translation will be published by Oxford University Press). He is also the author of “Grand patron, Fils d’ouvrier” (Seuil, 2014). He now dedicates his research to the study of the Indian business elite. His most recent work includes an analysis of interlocking directorate networks among the top 250 companies of the NSE. He also conducted a quantitative analysis of the trajectories of the CEOs and chairmen of the top 100 NSE companies (forthcoming publication). He’s currently working on a study of “Clubs, social life and sociability among Delhi’s upper-class”.