Mobility through affinal relations bangladeshi middle class, transnational immigrants and networking

Table of Contents Chapter One: Introducing the Research 1.2 Emergence of the ‘Middle Class’ in Bangladesh 6 1.3.1 Middle Class in the Industrial and Post-industrial West 13 1.3.2 Social

MOBILITY THROUGH AFFINAL RELATIONS: BANGLADESHI

‘MIDDLE CLASS,’ TRANSMIGRANTS AND NETWORKS

SEUTY SABUR MSS (DU), M.A (Hiroshima University)

A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPY

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2010

MOBILITY THROUGH AFFINAL RELATIONS: BANGLADESHI

‘MIDDLE CLASS,’ TRANSMIGRANTS AND NETWORKS

SEUTY SABUR

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2010

Acknowledgements

I am not too sure whether to feel happy or sad writing this acknowledgement This Ph.D has never been about academic accomplishment for me Rather, it was part of the journey which started almost a decade ago These years were all about ‘living’ every acknowledgeable idea, pushing the boundaries and unleashing ‘selves.’ None of these would have been possible without the individuals I have encountered all these years

My thesis is dedicated to the families who allowed me to intrude upon their lives both

in Bangladesh and the U.K over these years Their patience, enthusiasm and support made this thesis what it is today Their courage to share the complicated narratives of convoluted pasts and intimate lives were the most precious moments I have experienced as a researcher Their enormous trust humbled me I am indebted to my colleagues and friends, especially Shayda, Elma, Mithu fuppi, ma and my mother-in-law for connecting me with these families both in Dhaka and London I am grateful to Samya, my research assistant who shared the burden of recording my short interviews

Thanks would be too short of a word to show my gratitude to Tarefa fuppi and Jasim fuppa who not only offered their homes as my base in London, but also introduced

me to the members of their social networks (both British and British Bangladeshi) and showered me with their affection It may sound like a cliché but I truly experienced living the British Bangladeshi professional’s life whilst staying at the Rickmansworth’s home Thanks to Habib Bhai for looking after all the small details

of my everyday life and providing me with gastronomic delights everyday during my Brit days Finally, I want to thank Taiyan bhai and Samya (Glasgow), Yamima and Nasim bhai (Liverpool), and Adnan and Samia (London) for being wonderful hosts and letting me stay in their respective dens

I want to thank NUS for providing a generous scholarship and research fund that allowed me to push my limits as a researcher and conduct a transnational ethnography Thanks to the admin staff in the Department of Sociology for their constant logistical support Special thanks go to Ms Raja who always came with a reassuring smile taking care of all of our problems

I want to thank our Head of the Department Prof Chua Beng-Huat for chasing me to finish my thesis on time Thanks also go to Prof Bryan Tuner for training us in critical Social Theory, thereby providing a solid foundation for my thesis Thanks go

to A/P Vedi R Hadiz, A/P Roxana Waterson, A/P Anne Raffin, Dr Leong Wai Teng,

Dr Misha Petrovic and Prof Tong Chee Kiong for registering my existence and keeping track of my progress My heartfelt thanks also go to the members of my

thesis committee, A/P Eric Thompson and Dr Jennifer Jarman, for their interest in

my thesis and constant encouragements

Most importantly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, A/P Vineeta Sinha She allowed me to have space to grow as an independent researcher and provided me the outmost support (both intellectual and emotional) whenever I needed it Her faith in my work and constant encouragement boosted my confidence She did a magnificent job as an editor and helped me to get best out my data

My life revolved around this thesis for last four years While I was challenging the norms and every social relationship theoretically, together with my friends I tried to create a social space which we could call our own My graduate clan provided me with a disproportionate amount of love and respect beyond words I want to thank Sahoo for being a loving elder brother from day one until now, advising me about academic life I want to thanks my previous roomies Alka and Sanja for making me a part of their family I want to thank Eugene, Dan, Yong Chong, Sheela, both Good and Bad Lou, Nic, Weida, Bon, Pam, Hui Hui, Fiona, Johan and Saiful in making the grad room a happening place and providing me with daily dose of laughter I also want to thank my MOD Squad—Chand, Audrey, Mel, Kritti, Shantini, Mamtu and Becky Boo—for their unconditional support, love, smiles and hugs It has always been reassuring to have Alex and Joyabi around

I want to thank Thom, Zdravko and Rahul for providing me with a non-gendered space in which to live in and helping me to create a ‘home’ full of grace and humility

I have tortured Z the most in the last one year and a half with all my new ideas about

my thesis and beyond and we created a precious emotional/intellectual landscape of our own I want to thank my sunshine and constant companion Nuh Bee who validated my existence every day and brought out strongest person in me And I am not ashamed of torturing you either with all the editorial work mutual slavery

I want to thank my parents and parents-in-law for being the magnificent people they are and allowing me to live my life in the way I imagined Thanks to Ato and Adi for being patient sisters and taking care of my responsibilities in Dhaka when I was not around I am forever indebted to Shaian for bearing with me, understanding me and entertaining all my whims and fancies and let me be Without you, I would not have been able to make it and still be sane

Finally, my heartiest gratitude goes to A/P Manosh Choudhury who questioned all

my ideas and shattered my intellectual entity, making me think critically about the norms I have accepted unquestionably, which eventually instigated the birth of this thesis

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introducing the Research

1.2 Emergence of the ‘Middle Class’ in Bangladesh 6

1.3.1 Middle Class in the Industrial and Post-industrial West 13 1.3.2 Social Networks: Marriage and Friendship 23 1.3.3 Diaspora and Transnational Connections 35

Chapter Two: Introducing the Research Framework and Locales

2.2 Research Locales: Dhaka, London, Glasgow and Liverpool 49

2.3.1 Phase One (January 2005 to July 2007) 53

2.3.2 Phase Two (August 2007 to March 2008) 55

Chapter Three: Bangladeshi Class Society

3.2.1 The British Empire and the Emergence of the Salaried

Middle Class

70

3.2.2 From Pakistan to the Birth of Bangladesh: Middle Class

taking Centre Stage

80 3.3 Spatial Distribution of the Metropolitan Middle Class in Dhaka 88

3.4.3 Domesticity and Consumption Patterns 100

Chapter Four: Tying Knots: Transcending Boundaries through Affinal

4.5 Journey to the Unseen and the Unknown: Marrying Abroad 160

4.7 Affinal Relations, Familial Network, Marriage and Class Oligarchy 169

Chapter Five: The ‘Family’ Extended: Friends, Social Networks and the

Power of the ‘Middle Class’

5.3 Rights and Rituals of Friendship: Composition and Social

Resources

186

5.4 Familial Friendship: Succession of Social Capital 201

Chapter Six: Home away from Home: British Bangladeshi Professionals and their Social Networks

6.3 Trajectories of Bangladeshi Middle Class Transmigrants in the

U.K

224 6.4 Class Composition of British Bangladeshi Professionals 234

6.6 Social Networks of British Bangladeshi Professionals 246

Chapter Seven: Conclusion: New Elite Formation in Bangladesh 260

Summary

My doctoral thesis is infused with the assumption that the affluent sections of Bangladeshi ‘middle class’ have formed their oligarchy over three decades Their networks have been instrumental for them in the consolidation of their power, while new forms of alliances have been forged through marriages, thus forming and reproducing power at ‘home’ and abroad My thesis traces the process of ‘middle class’ mobility through affinal relations The endeavour was to examine how marriages are instrumental in strengthening, or weakening, alliances among the dominant sections of this affluent group of the ‘middle class.’ Thus, the research seeks to unpack strategies of networking—through a focus on affinal relationships—

of the metropolitan middle class over the last three decades As such, the central research queries are: How are marriages preferred among the middle class? How do social arrangements of a marriage secure social power and status at a particular moment? How does this social power transcend the nation-state through personal networks at home and abroad? Eventually, my research addresses these questions by focusing on members of the metropolitan ‘middle class’ in Bangladesh and their cosmopolitan counterparts in London

List of Tables

Table 1: Spatial distribution of middle class 92

Table 5: Transformations in education, occupation and inherent

property in three generations

176

Table 6: The distribution of schools according to their ‘clan’ 211

Table 7: Estimate of the growth of the Bangladeshi population in the

Table 9: Transformations in education, occupation and inherent

property in four generations across multiple locations

238

List of Figures

Figure 1: Research locales: Dhaka, London, Glasgow and Liverpool 51 Figure 2: Network used for selecting the research population 54

Figure 8: Sample of Matrimonial Biodata (groom) 140 Figure 9: Sample of Matrimonial Biodata (bride) 141

Figure 11: A wedding group photo – Family and friends from three

continents

164

Figure 12: Showing 689 links among 114 friends of the author 200

Figure 14: Structure for potential oligarchy 214

Figure 16: Gathering of family members and friends from the U.K.,

Luxembourg and Bangladesh at Tarifa’s Garden

(Rickmansworth) in the Summer of 2008

258

Chapter One Introducing the Research

1.1 Towards the Research Problematic

Being born and raised in Bangladesh, I am well aware of the existence of a group of people—a rather affluent section of Bangladeshi society—who rely extensively on their social networks to accomplish a variety of goals My sheer inquisitiveness for understanding the process of forging connections amongst this particular group led

me to conceptualise this piece of research in specific ways At a theoretical level, I was looking for an entry point that would make sense of these networks and for helping to understand the ideological positions and practices of this group It seemed

to me that it sensible to approach marriage as such a trigger through which networks (both kin and non-kin) are set in motion and core alliances made As such, I focus primarily on affinal relations in order to understand how these groups are formed, how they are connected to each other, what their incentives are for establishing and sustaining these connections and being part of these networks, and how these networks function and are extended In short, I suggest that the everyday practices of this group carry enormous sociological insight for understanding the phenomenon of class relations This is my primary motivation for constructing a research project around my initially lay observations

Given my training as an anthropologist and having attained some familiarity with contemporary sociological theories, many questions about how to approach this group surfaced at the outset of my research To begin with, I have struggled with the question of what to label my interest group Initially, I thought of using the

description ‘middle class’ to denote members of the group; however, as a student of sociology, I am well aware that this is a loaded term and carries specific meanings in sociological discourse I am also aware of the controversies entailed in the invocation

of the ‘middle class’ as an analytical tool and that it is important to avoid essentialising and homogenising the category However, a thorough reading of existing theories and especially the literature on class formation has provided me with the justification to use the concept of ‘middle class,’ but with certain caveats I must emphasize, however, that when using this term I am consciously and specifically referring to the affluent sections of the Bangladeshi middle class, the community I focus on in this research project

1 “England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them But that is not the question The question is can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing

about that revolution” (Karl Marx on ‘The British Rule in India,’ published in the Herald Tribune, 10

perfectly legitimate for civilising the subject population Complex class formation in post-colonial states has been a later development in class theories

Within the Indian subcontinent, systematic research on class-related issues occurred somewhat later and, in comparison to the Indian context, little scholarly research on class has been done in the Pakistani context However, across the border, the Indian subaltern study group has contributed to a new surge leading to the deconstruction of Indian socio-political history and realities As the interlocutors were from Bengal, so their research was concentrated mostly in colonial and post-colonial Bengal Some of this research has focused on state and class formation, while others have addressed women’s issues In short, class theories in post-colonial contexts have over-emphasized the Indian situation at the expense and complete marginalisation of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi situations Hence, my thesis strives to fill a vacuum on class theories in South Asia that have largely emerged from Euro-American theories

on class and some research done by South Asian scholars themselves but, in my view, neither entirely account for the complexitiy of the class contexts within Bangladeshi society

The impulse for studying ‘class’ occurred as a very late development in the Bangladeshi social science community Anthropologists who have tried to grapple with the dynamics of the social reality in post-colonial Bangladesh were either concerned with analysing society on the basis of kinship,2 or on the basis of mode of production3 within an agrarian context Meanwhile, the emergence of the group I am labeling ‘middle class’ and their oligarchic nature remained completely unnoticed by

2 See Abul Khair Nazmul Karim (1956)

3 The research of Abul Khair Nazmul Karim (1956) and Helaluddin Khan Shamsul Arefeen (1975)

social scientists This neglect happened partly because of a deep-seated discomfort amongst academics to critically analyse their own class and partly because they were possessed by the ghost of Euro-centric thinking Collectively, these have inspired the study of ‘others’—largely made up of the rural and ethnic communities It was not until the mid-1980s that critical analysis4 of Bangladeshi class structures began to appear

This body of research has prepared the ground for further studies in this area; however, I also discuss some limitations in my closer reading of these existing theories about the Bangladeshi ‘middle class,’ which even my own previous thesis5did not address The critical works on the middle class I have read were entangled either with the idea of state formation or with gendered processes These studies provided an immaculate and unproblematic image of the transition that the Bangladeshi ‘middle class’ cluster had experienced historically and were going through That said, they did not provide details about the agents of change who were making history in their everyday lives through their thoughts and practices Here, I have picked up some threads of the tapestry that my predecessors were trying to weave and added new elements of my own For instance, this affluent middle class, in

my view, was also morphing into a ‘transnational class.’ Given this recognition, in this research, I try to detail the various elements and patterns I identified amongst the group in question I focus on their aspirations, their privileges, the mechanism through which they make social connections, and their networks at home and abroad, as well

as any ontological crises they may experience My thesis is infused with the

assumption that the affluent sections of the Bangladeshi ‘middle class’ have formed

an oligarchy6 over the last three decades Their networks have been instrumental for them to consolidate their power, while new forms of alliances have been forged through marriages and friendship and, thus, considered and reproduced power at

‘home’ and ‘abroad.’

This thesis will trace the process of ‘middle class’ mobility in Bangladesh through affinal relations and friendship The endeavour is to examine how marriages and friendships are instrumental in forging alliances among the dominant sections of this affluent cluster within the ‘middle class.’ Thus, the research seeks to unpack strategies

of networking (through affinal relationships and friendships), by the metropolitan middle class over the last three decades Thus, the central research questions are: How are marriages preferred among the middle class? How do the social arrangements of a marriage and friendship secure social power and status at particular moments? How does this social power transcend the nation-state through personal networks at home and abroad? Eventually, this research will address these questions by focusing on members of both the metropolitan ‘middle class’ in Bangladesh and their cosmopolitan counterparts in London

In order to answer the questions, I needed to address two major issues of marriage and friendship which provided me with a the road map for navigating these middle class social networks and understanding the alliances, as well as patterns of mobility amongst this community, both within the Bangladeshi context and transnationally Hence, a survey on theories of class, social networks, marriage, friendship and

6 Since 2003, Manosh Chowdhury has constantly been arguing about middle class dominance, its

transnationalism was necessary to address the limitations of existing theories I offer a survey of the existing literature with a view to framing the contours of my own research problematic In fact, I critically engage the discourse on class, social networks, marriage and friendship so as to highlight both the potential and limitations within I briefly introduce these sociological discourses regarding the middle class cluster in first section, followed by my research framework, in an attempt to produce

an ethnography of the metropolitan middle class in Dhaka

1.2 Emergence of the ‘Middle Class’ in Bangladesh

As a lay description term, ‘middle class’ has been part of Bengali vocabulary for some time However, discourses about the ‘middle class’ made their way into the Bangladeshi social science scene only very recently; until then, very little research had been done on class formations Existing studies failed to see that Bangladesh has emerged as a ‘classed-based’ society since colonial intervention Since the 1980s there has been a substantial amount of work done in Bengal on the issues of class formation; however, some research also focused on class formation as an integral part

of the formation of state and national identity In the interest of a focused discussion,

my research concentrates on Bangladeshi middle class formation7 as I highlight some important scholarly contributions

By adopting a neo-Marxist stance, B K Jahangir (1986) tried to figure out the problematic of nationalism in Bangladesh Jahangir used Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to understand the complicated struggle for nationalism, exploring different aspects of class conflict and collaboration Making an argument about the

7 In my Masters thesis, which dealt with the formation of the metropolitan middle class in Bangladesh

in great length, I tried to review the research work done on both sides of Bengal Therefore, it is not

bureaucratic process of class interest, he posits that the rich peasantry was already in the process of emerging before the British (and the Pakistani) colonial impositions Their development was blocked due to colonial conquest and subsequently by Pakistani administrative manipulations While a stagnant industrial development could not produce a capitalist class, the administrative growth fostered a competitive bureaucracy.8 Local trade was in the hands of a rich but illiterate bourgeois The colonial crisis bought these two antagonistic classes into competition for power, with

a victory for the bureaucracy being the outcome Jahangir argues that the petty bourgeois were overwhelmingly prioritised because they monopolised the state in its major areas of functioning Quoting Kamal Hossain, he contends that the people who ran the bureaucracy, in senior banking and commercial positions, possessed lucrative import licenses and ran industries taken over (from their former Pakistani owners), emerging as the bourgeois after the political liberation of Bangladesh He argues that the state became the dominant instrument for class creation during this period My stance overlaps with Jahangir’s on this crucial issue He invokes two terms, namely

‘petty bourgeois’ and ‘middle class,’ switching between them and describing how they dominated the political scene and nationalist movement in Bangladesh This particular research was crucial for understanding the formation of the middle class in Bangladesh as it paved the way for further exploration

8 B K Jahangir (1986) identified two groups among the dominant class in colonial Bengal on the basis

of their relation to hegemonic forces and relations, namely the Pakistanis and Bengalis He divided these groups further The Pakistani hegemonic group was comprised of people working in government (non-Bengali bureaucrats, staff of the colonial state); and governmental and non-governmental sectors (industrialists, traders, tea planters, owners of agricultural farms) Bengali hegemonic groups were subdivided into two groups One was superior civil servants of the colonial beureacracy and a few bourgeois involved in trade The second group consisted of people with regional interests—the first segment was the Bengali part of the Pakistani bureaucracy, while the second segment consisted of

S M Shamsul Alam (1995) explored the various outcomes of the development endeavour undertaken in post-colonial Bangladesh He argued that during the colonial period an emerging bourgeois class (consisting of both Hindus and Muslims) existed

in India, but the Bengali bourgeois class was non-existent There was also an uneven growth of the Muslim social classes in colonial India Various factions of the Bengali Muslim middle class wholeheartedly supported the idea of Pakistan but they were soon disillusioned by Pakistani colonial policy This resulted in them fighting for Bengali linguistic nationalism and paved the way for the creation of Bangladesh Throughout all the changes in state structure (the Awami League regime ruling in 19711975; different military regimes ruling from 1975 to the early 1990s; and the democratic government ruling since 1991), the different factions of the middle class gained control of the state This class had its roots in trade and commerce and various administrative works, not in production According to Alam, during the various struggles of independence, the petty bourgeois managed to win the nationalist struggle He argues that this particular class was able to articulate the nationalist discourse hegemonising the whole of society both ideologically and politically because of two reasons: (a) the landlords and bourgeois were generally weak to counter the petty bourgeois hegemonic discourse; and (b) the subaltern social class (peasants and workers) were unable to pose any threat, structurally or subjectively, to petty bourgeois hegemonic attack This argument was crucial for my research to understand how this class has led the rest of the society

More recently, Ali Riaz (2005) has tried to understand the complex process of state formation in the Third World He identifies three decades of transformation in Bangladesh, comparing the Bangladeshi experience with Tanzania, focusing on

exploring the complicated relations of social class and state Riaz argues that direct colonial rule changed class relations, making possible the emergence of a new class New forms of alliance and conflicts within and between dominant and subordinate classes were an essential part of these class formations According to him, the conflict and collaboration of the middle classes with the colonial state enabled them to emerge

as a political agent The middle classes who were subjected to colonial hegemony became the moral leaders of the subordinate class, partly because of the weakness of the other classes and partly because of the appropriation of hegemonic ideology of Bengali nationalism As such, his argument about petty bourgeois dominance is very similar to Shamsul Alam’s He argues that, in the 1960s, an array of urban middle classes emerged—ranging from petty traders, shopkeepers, a salaried class serving the state and private enterprises, professionals like doctors and engineers, and an intelligentsia—and was involved in different educational and research institutions in urban areas He also argues that the first middle class generation in Bangladesh was completely dependent on their education and skills, unlike their predecessors who had economic relations with the rural areas He refers to Gankovsky’s (1972) data which say that in 1971 there were about 500,000 small scale merchants, as well as about 225,000 intelligentsia employed (with low pay) in different state institutions, private firms and elementary schools He illustrated the process by which the intermediate class reached the center stage of politics over a period of time in Bangladesh Eventually, the intermediate classes, led by the petty bourgeois, gained state control in post-liberation Bangladesh (1971) I explore the lives of these actors in my research closely and present their biography and genealogy of three generations, juxtaposing it against the broader historical context to make sense of middle class formation and transformations

I have tried to present the different discourses that emerged around the concept of

‘middle class’ in the 1980s and noted some of their shortcoming Summarising the arguments of the above-mentioned research, it can be said that the petty bourgeois/middle class clearly had its roots in agriculture and trade In the early 20thcentury, education and occupation (civil service, professions like doctors, bankers, engineers, lawyers, teachers, intelligentsia, and executives in non-governmental organisations) defined the middle class By the mid-20th century they had also evolved

as active political agents With the liberation of Bangladesh they gained state control and hegemonised society both economically and politically Issues like transformation

of gender roles within this class remained unattended in these discussions These issues were partially addressed by the following authors

Hilary Standing (1991) discussed the formation of a salaried middle class and the position of women in Bengal, based on extensive fieldwork within the households of Kolkata She examines the impact of women’s employment on households and on family relationships Standing considered the roles of family cycle and class position

in mediating the impact of employment and places the issue within a historical perspective She argues that the ideological restructuring of the domestic domain has been as far reaching for Bengali women as they were for women in Victorian Britain (Standing 1991, 69) To substantiate her argument she notes that at least “three major elements in this transformation can be detected First, there was the transformation of pre-existing, ‘inside-outside’; female–male divisions of space into world of employment and public affairs; second, there was a reconstruction of gender ideologies in relation to the duties of the sexes in their separate worlds Third, there was the rise of ‘housewives’ both as consumers and as conveyers of the new values

and attitudes that were essential to the reproduction of the new middle class” (Standing 1991, 63) Religious and social reformism reinforced the image of women

as primarily dutiful wives and mothers, while emphasizing a new vision of marriage

as one of companionship and mutual respect The agents I am talking about within the Bangladeshi context went through similar transitions while consolidating their class positions

Similarly, Chowdhury and Ahmed’s (2000) work resonates with Standing’s idea The former claims that “with the emergence of Muslim middle class the idea of conjugality became part of the idea of domesticity Woman in this framework is a housewife and her role is moral and ideological Sexual purity is a major constituent

of her conscience Men’s identity in this structure is economic His work concentrated

in public (political, economical and cultural); his purity is not as vulnerable as it is of women Through restructuring, public and private honour and character became very important for the middle class, and women become central to nurturing modesty” (translated from Ahmed and Chowdhury 2000, 155) Ahmed argues elsewhere that the opportunities for education may even be found in employment, freedom and mobility, and that these discourses constituted a middle class identity—the subjective and collective sense of self—which distanced its members from the ‘uncivilized,’

‘uneducated’, ‘ignorant’ and ‘large masses of poor’ (Ahmed 1999, 111)

To understand this new role and the complex attributes of the educated ‘middle class’

in contemporary Bangladesh, it is essential to reflect on Chowdhury's account which emphasizes the global attributes of the middle class According to him, “… this includes the global expansion of production along with their global consumption

patterns, their new perception of liberalism, motivation of discovering ‘selves,’

‘locating the selves’ within the culture or rather revealing it as to be the culture, identifying various ‘others,’ and offering them ‘leadership’” (translated from Chowdhury 2003) He defines the variations in characteristics of the middle class as multiple cultures and stresses that even with variance there is affinity (those attributes without which the class could not be identified) among members of the dominant class

Hence, against these discussions collectively, I present my specific understanding of the category ‘middle class.’ By this I mean a group of individuals with certain levels

of education, engaged in specific professions, sharing a set of core values, and who have a sense of security and stability In the past, I have often used the term

‘metropolitan middle class’9 to refer to the affluent sections of the middle class living

in a metropolis These individuals have a surplus of income and with it they maintain

a particular lifestyle, as well as accumulate resources through the modern means of savings and credit By ‘lifestyle,’ I do not necessarily imply patterns of consumption

to categories in a system of social classification; rather, I use it to signify an encompassing way of living desired by and aspired to by this group This includes the consumption of exotic foods, buying clothes from local and international brands, intellectual goods (books, CDs, DVDs), travelling to exotic locations and being recipients of certain values (liberal, accommodative, sexuality)—all manifesting their acquired cosmopolitan taste This enables the group to identify with fellow group members and strengthen the networks among them The social networks of these individuals are not limited to a single nation state, but rather transcend national

boundaries The very lifestyle, values, and enormity of the transnational network show distinct signs of a ‘cosmopolitan’10 class in the making

1.3 Conceptual Framework

Here, I present the theories of the middle class in general I argue that class habitués provides the base for social networks; it structures and is structured simultaneously I will also argue that class homogamy is one of the salient features of the network, prompting members of this particular class to form alliances with others that they have a distinct affinity Thus, class homogamy creates a way to expand networks both

at home and across national borders I substantiate my arguments with existing theories of class, migration and transnationalism, marriage, friendship and network I will use the experience of the Bangladeshi middle class and their extended British Bangladeshi counterparts as case illustrations in my thesis

1.3.1 Middle Class in the Industrial and Post-industrial West

Class has been one of the pivotal theories in sociology and has received renewed attention in the past few decades It has been under tremendous scrutiny and was continuously in use for explaining both the past and the present; it has also been demonised when it failed to explain the economic domain of society Theories of class have also not been static since Karl Marx’s exposition, but have taken on different forms in the ever-changing economic, political and intellectual situations In this

section, I present the different positions and debates vis-à-vis theories of class since

10 “… cosmopolitanism descriptively to address certain socio-cultural processes or individual behaviours, values or dispositions manifesting a capacity to engage cultural multiplicity” (Vertovec and Cohen 2002, 3) They suggest that the very concept of cosmopolitanism has been coupled with a handful of elite who were fortunate and eager enough to explore new territories, learn new languages,

the inception of the ‘concept’ and which helped me to formulate my concept of the

‘middle class’ in the Bangladeshi context

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle,” proclaimed by Marx and Engels in 1848, became the foundation of class analysis Marx’ work provided a persuasive picture of class relations and its conflicting model The industrial revolution in England, when Marx was formulating his theories, is marked as the period of great transformation in the socio-political and economical structure of European society In an emerging capitalist context, he witnessed how the working class was ruthlessly exploited, how their labour was manipulated for producing excessive surplus, and how the bourgeoisie emerged to consume every drop of this surplus Marx envisioned a theory and praxis of class which was not only aimed to analyse exploitative class relations, but also provided an exit into a classless society Marxist notion of class was defined by ownership, the control over means of production, and the relationship to the means of production These ownership relations were the basis of class relations in property and labor markets The exploitative nature of class relation forges to form the conscious social grouping – class for themselves These antagonistic class struggles against each other in the political, economic and ideological spheres shape history Marx’ classical work was thus seen to be important to compare and contrast the processes of class formation in Bangladesh

Max Weber’s (1993, 2004) work was also influential in formulating the notion of class Like Marx, Weber emphasized the economic dimension of class Besides property ownership, he also emphasized the significance of market situations These

included the individual skills, qualifications which would enhance the life chances compared to who did not possess them He rightly gauged the potential of Marx’ argument to understand historical change apart from its determinism Furthermore, he dismantled the concept of Marxist ‘class’ into ‘class,’ ‘status’ and ‘party,’ to which he added authoritative relations within the state that defined the ruling and subject social strata11 (Weber 1914) The independent significance of social status (social honour and prestige) is the hierarchical system of cultural differentiation which identifies particular persons, behaviours and lifestyles as superior or inferior Both Marx and Weber remain influential in the conceptualisation of class in social theory, and although class and status are two different and distinct concepts analytically, it is often difficult to separate them empirically Therefore, it was relevant to use these classical texts and reconfigure them to the Bangladeshi context

In a related view, Gramsci (1978) wanted to gain explanatory power with respect to superstructural institutions The concept of ‘hegemony’ is at the very core of Gramscian thought in understanding dominance In hegemony, a class succeeds in persuading the other classes of society to accept its own moral, political and cultural values This concept assumes plain consent given by the majority of a population to a certain direction suggested by those in power However, this consent is not always peaceful and may combine physical force or coercion with intellectual, moral and cultural inducement It can also be understood as ‘common sense,’ a cultural universe where the dominant ideology is practiced and spread, i.e., something which emerges out of class struggles and serves to shape and influence peoples minds It is a set of ideas by means of which dominant groups strive to secure the consent of subordinate

groups to their leadership In the previous section of this thesis, I showed how the middle class emerged as the hegemonic class and shaped the dominant ideology from the earlier research

Different trends in class theories were inextricably associated with capitalist industrial development in the West Marx’ and Weber’s theories of class were formulated during the industrial revolution when feudalism was being outmoded by capitalism New forms of industrial management produced new types of hierarchy In addition, there have been new forms of non-manual work emerging, especially in the service sectors These changes have resultingly affected the personal and collective identity of people

Class theory and research in 1970s were affected by the different and contradictory influences of Neo-Marxists and Neo-Weberians though, becoming divided into culturalist and economic approaches Until the 1960s, Weberian social stratification dominated American sociology, completely ignoring the economic aspects of Marxist themes of class Class was seen as synonymous with social strata in American society, while structural functionalists re-defined it in normative terms and conceptualised it simply as status For Talcott Parsons and other mainstream proponents of American sociology, social stratification was a matter of social ranking in relation to shared cultural values, and it was these normative relations that gave rise to ‘class’ relations (Davis 1942, cited in Scott 1996)

The redefinition of class by Parsons and his disciples was challenged by C Wright Mills (1970) who tried to see how class and social relations were associated with the

formation of political and economic elites Mills reasserted the relevance of the Marxist tradition, as well as the conflict theories that were developed in Europe He revealed how the conditions and styles of middle class life—originating from elements of both the new lower and upper classes—represent modern society as a whole He examined white-collar life and tried to see what it was to be ‘American’—a whole new cosmos of management Mills’s concept of the ‘power elite’ was crucial in identifying the aspirations and destination of the affluent middle class

Braverman (1974) addressed two of Marx’ three forms of proletarianisation, namely that of society and work with reference to routine white-collar occupations According

to him, during the 20th century, the class situation of clerical workers has declined following the bureaucratisation, rationalisation and feminisation of office work He challenged the view that the routine non-manual worker was a member of the middle class in monopoly capitalism

The resurgence of Marxism in academia generated an abstract theoretical debate, often centering on the contested definitions of ‘middle class.’ Poulantzas (1975) attempted to formulate a theory of the capitalist state His argument is that the state is more than a result of economic social structure, so he examined social class, power, the role of ideology, bureaucracy and other social issues He was also concerned about the problem of proletarianisation occurring in ‘new’ middle class occupations—the lowest level workers in the commercial, public and service sectors (i.e., work done manually by shop assistants, hospital orderlies, semi-skilled red tape workers, etc.)

He used the mental-manual divide as an integral part of the capitalist relations of production Taking Marx’ ‘surplus value’ as the key to understanding class relations,

he defines the new middle class as the class that consumes the surplus without itself being productive of the surplus value Poulantzas also tried to identify the actual interest of the middleclass As a property-less class, their features resemble the proletariat but their work does not directly produce surplus; the authority and power they have associated with their employment serve to differentiate them from the working class

According to Ossowski (1963), the contrast between ‘oppositional’ and ‘gradational’ class schemata was fundamental to European social thought, as well as the contemporary divergences between the European and American sociology of stratification The analytical split between structure and action in identifying class has remained as a contentious issue in social theory According to Giddens (1994), the indivisibility of social structure and action is inherent in the double nature of social reality

In the 1970s, quantitative class analysis focused on occupational aggregates One of the most significant projects was led by Robert Erickson and John Goldthrope and called CASMIN (Comparative Analysis of Social mobility in Industrial Societies) It elaborated on the Weberian model, i.e., it distinguished work and market situations and identified how it increased the convergence between them by distinguishing between manual and non-manual workers Through this very relational approach, it realised that class advantages can be gained from different kinds of possessions—ownership of property, possession of knowledge/skills, possession of physical labour power, etc These possessions, alone or in different combinations, make up the respective class map and increasingly resemble each other

Another project on class structure and class consciousness was coordinated by Erik Olin Wright who tried to use the Marxist analysis of social class Wright (1979) identified the problem of property-based class and argued that if class structure in capitalism is analysed through the ownership of, and exclusion from, the means of production then one will end up having a class structure of three locations, namely a capitalist class, a petty bourgeois and a working class What Wright finds problematic

is that a large number of people from the ‘middle class’ who do not own their own means of production and who sell their labour power in the labour market do not seem

to be part of the ‘working class.’ He wanted to figure out a tool of analysis which would enable him to differentiate class locations among the people who share a common location of non-ownership within capitalist property relations In his analysis, he divided the class of employees into two dimensions; firstly, their relationship to authority within production and, secondly, their possession of skills and expertise He provided a model of a class structure which differentiates six locations within class relations—capitalists, petty bourgeois, expert managers, non-skilled managers, experts, and workers This approach is gradational

These projects, especially the one by Goldthrope, were criticised by feminists For a long time social class was assumed to be defined for all members of the household by the occupation of the male breadwinner It was assumed that women were defined by their father’s social class and after marriage by that of their husband’s The work of feminists unsettles this assumption in two ways First, they looked for the source of inequalities within the family and households and, second, by analysing the way the labor market was segregated by gender Delphy and Leonard (1992) argue that sexual classification is a consequence of patriarchal domination She emphasized women’s

economic exploitation within families and developed the concept of a domestic mode

of production

Rosemary Crompton (1989) was critical of both Wright’s and Goldthrope’s work Both of these approaches of class theory contained employment and an occupational dimension; she argues, “This approach, which rests upon an analysis of occupational structure, cannot separate out systematically the impact of ‘class’ from that of

‘gender’ (or indeed, of other factors) in this structuring Although therefore, such theoretical ‘class’ schemes retain their sociological utility as descriptive concepts, they do not, as has been claimed, provide uncontaminated measures of ‘social class.’” She also reviews theories of ‘patriarchy’ for an alternative and flexible framework and she comes to the conclusion that even the occupational structure is extremely gendered Still, the most sophisticated versions of patriarchal theorising fail to establish the specificity of male/female exploitation and run the danger of making the negative assertion that all men exploit all women My stance is somewhat similar to Crompton’s regarding the existing patriarchal structure within the middle class I will explore the gender roles within the affluent section of the middle class and focus more

on the complementary nature of these roles, rather than the exploitative ones Thus, occupational structure alone cannot be used unproblematically as the raw material for class analysis

Abercrombie and Urry (1983) split the new middle class into two groups, a deskilled routine white-collar fraction and a skilled specialist faction For them, , in Neo-Weberian terms, the upper part of the new middle class that may be distinguished from deskilled white collar workers and in place by virtue of a relatively privileged work and market situation, while, in Neo-Marxist terms, because they perform the

function of control, reproduction and conceptualisation—necessary functions for capital in relation to labor Typically, this class is recruited by the bureaucracies on the basis of their credentials They are not claiming the service class as a potential ruling class by replacing the capitalists, but argue that it is asserted that the functions

of both of these classes are becoming somewhat indistinguishable Savage (2000) divided the middle class into three factions on the basis of three class assets, namely property, culture and organisation, which provide the basis of three middle classes, the entrepreneurial, the professional and the managerial He argues that the significance of these assets varies historically and spatially and therefore influences middle class formation at any point in time at any place In my thesis, I explore these variations among the middle class and present individuals’ trajectories in life and accumulation pattern through intergenerational data

In understanding post-industrial society, there was a paradigm shift in understanding the middle class through consumption patterns and representational lifestyles in relation to production Pierre Bourdieu (1993) brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world Bourdieu’s concept of judgment gives a powerful framework to analyse any contemporary class, though his research concentrates on the tastes and preferences of the French bourgeoisie Bourdieu was influenced both by Karl Marx and Max Weber; to him, ‘a class is defined as much as

it is perceived as by its being, by its consumption—which need not to be conspicuous

in order to be symbolic—as much as by its position in the relations of production (even if it is true that the latter governs the former)” (Bourdieu 2002, 483) He further argues that a “… social class (in itself) is a class of identical or similar conditionings

… producing same habitus, understood as the system of dispositions common to all

products of same conditioning.” According to him, “Class habitus … regarded as

subjective but non-individual systems of internalized structures, common scheme of perception, conception and action which are the preconditions of all objectification and apperceptions; and the objective coordination of practice and sharing of the world view could be founded on the perfect impersonality and interchangeability of singular practice and view” (Bourdieu 1989, 60) According to Bourdieu, the most classifying and best classified properties are those which function as a marker or sign of the distinction or marks of infamy, a stigmatic title expressing class membership whose intersection defines social identity at any given time or space, family name, title in occupation, or educational qualification These express the power appropriated by and appropriate to any class, and the individuals functioning within the habitus are both men and women His research provided the most fundamental tool of analysis to understand the affluent middle class of Bangladesh

Gender roles within particular classes remained largely unexplored though, except for Crompton’s work Hence, I refer Leonor Davidoff and Catherine Hall’s argument which rests on the assumption that gender and class always operate together, such that the consciousness of class always takes a gendered form (see Davidoff and Hall 1987, 13) According to them, the class/gender system is not universal, but rather a historical phenomenon, which is specific in nature with its contingent origin and nature Their theory is based on an investigation of the English middle class of the

18th and 19th centuries This class was not only the product of economical, political and social forces, but also had a cultural impetus The emergence of the bourgeois was a moral phenomenon, as well as an economic phenomenon The extreme evangelic accuracy required a gender component to be infused, which resonated

throughout the centuries in middle class life They continue this argument by saying that English middle-class men required the new ideology of domesticity, relying heavily on female support and their affinal networks to establish themselves, as well

as their enterprises Hall and Davidoff provide a flawless picture of Victorian middle class and located transformation though marriage and inheritance of the organisation

of their household In my view, they have given us a flexible framework which can be used in different times and spaces and provided a way to see the phenomenon of middle class formation in a new light

However, every theory has its own objectives, limitations and potential for further expansion For me, it is fundamental to understand how gender and class systems operate simultaneously In this section, I have tried to present ideas about ‘classes’ in general, and the middle class in particular, as well as the feminist critique of class, together with an alternative framework Among them, Hall and Davidoff’s theory of gender/class system substantiated my theoretical framework along with Bourdieu’s class analysis

1.3.2 Social Networks: Marriage and Friendship

Here, I discuss the different approaches to social network research I focus in particular on the ‘mobilities approach’ of Jonas Larsen et al (2006), where they talk about ‘network capital.’ I will argue how network capital is also intertwined with social capital I will also try to illustrate how marriage and friendship is instrumental for sustaining, expanding and consolidating networks in this section Furthermore, I discuss how marriage determines a person’s identity and creates the base for alliances among the different social groups I use the concept of homogamy to understand the

tendency of alliances among the different factions of the middle class by arguing that homogamy is born out of habitués I have used notion of ‘homogamy’ together with different forms of capital to state my case

Social Networks

Research on the ‘social network’ is the product of post-World War sociology and anthropology Initially, the focus of this research was on micro-level studies of connections between individuals in multiple locales Since then, the nature of the social network study has gone through various changes In the 1930s, the community and neighbourhood was the study site of networks Hoggart (1957) explored the working class attitude in families and then in neighbourhoods in the urban north of England These neighborhoods were small worlds in themselves with a homogenous character and well-defined village-like structure where everything was accessible Most of these studies tried to understand the social networks and their support systems by exploring the kinships and friendships within an urban confine Much later, Putnam (2000) studied communities in America; he tried to explore the relations within a community and different forms of social capital He demonstrated that the survival of the community requires different kinds of social capital and a connectedness of the individual to social network According to him, communities in USA with significant social capital have strong social networks, reciprocal social relations and mutual trust in knowing that such strong ties are also fading with time

Blau (1964), in Exchange and Power in Social Life, tried to understand social

structure through the social process that governs relations between individuals and groups He illustrated how people’s choices of association determined on the basis of

intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and reciprocal and unilateral transactions The author argues that the structure of social relations reveals preferences among persons with similar status attributes or universal preferences (such as wealth and competence) throughout the collectivity for persons with given attribute To Blau, social life is an embodiment of various exchange systems, where power and prestige is restored upon engagement or disengagement of participants in this process In this system, people accumulate power through favours and services which are transacted in the future, together with careful calculations in maintaining the associations that bear consequence upon our social intercourse His research was crucial in helping understand the process of exchange among the middle class, particularly in terms of how this contributes to the amassing of power and how it is invested in the future

Mark Granovettor’s (1973) “The Strength of Weak Ties” was a landmark in social network research He showed how weak ties allow one access to the larger network Weak ties provide valuable information about the professional and technical labour market, something which strong ties cannot do, as the weak ties work as a bridge to connect separated networks My research contradicts this position, instead arguing that strong ties of kin and friends facilitate the process of network expansion among the middle class They not only work as a mentor in accessing the new social network, but also work as guarantors which weak ties fail to provide

Castells’ (1996) work provides a different view of network society According to him, Global capitalism draws on network flexibility facilitated by information technology and digitalisation Through the flow of capital and information, the organisational network is passed through the hubs and nodes of the virtual network This kind of network influences politics through the electronic media and is generating networked

individuals The network society is dominated by mobile cosmopolitan elites creating new forms of exclusion of the immobile poor My stance regarding the cosmopolitan elite is somewhat similar to Castells’ in that I illustrate the how these individuals are materially linked with their homes in different localities, thereby creating a fluid space

Similar arguments were made by Wellman (2002) and his collaborators about networked individuals The Social Network Analysis (SNA), an extensive research programme led by Wellman and others in Toronto,12 was concerned with mapping the links between people, organisations, interest groups, places and more The research was instigated on the assumption that with the apparent disorder in the society, it is nonetheless networked and is “… a large structured web of social connections strung between people and technologies, near and far.” It also illustrates how social capital is dependent upon technologies These networks are not confined to one locale anymore, but are stretched out geographically and socially In a ‘network society,’ people are tied to multiple networks, but each also possesses a ‘personal community.’ Wellman illustrated the transformation in network communities and identified three phases, namely door-to-door, place-to-place and person-to-person In person-to-person communication, a person becomes the ‘portal.’ According to Wellman, the development of computer communication and flourishing social networks produce the

‘networked individual,’ where networks and friendships are chosen and specific I would like to add that these very choices are partially predetermined by their habitués

Another recent approach, called ‘Small World Analysis,’ in network research was introduced by Watts (2004) He claims that all individuals, regardless of their social location are separated by six degrees His claim, backed up by empirical evidence, refers to incidents where two strangers bump into each other and find out they know each others partners, friends or workmates This is a very powerful event when an individual is far away from home This concept has some similarity with the SNA assumption that social life is necessarily networked It is also inspired by Granovetter’s analysis of the strength of weak ties However, Larsen (2006) and his collaborators are critical about the small world analysis as it does not explain how these links are organized and reinforced through specific meetings and travel or they are connected with particular strong and weak ties

Larsen et al (2006) tried to show “how contemporary technologies and practices of transport and communication are reconfiguring how people connect with places and each other, how they socialize with and relate to friends, workmates and family members and how they make new contacts often at distance.” They have developed what they call a ‘mobilities approach.’ The mobilities approach suggests that it is not the number of links that people possess that is important, but rather that

‘meetingness’—talking, writing, emailing and traveling—is the vital factor in the network and interdependence “The mobilities approach understands social network

as something accomplished, in process, weaving together the material and the social,

as well as pleasures, obligations and burden” (Larsen et al 2006) In my view, this is very useful in understanding the nature of transnational networks, particularly in terms of how they are embodied, performed and reinforced The authors also delineate with the concept with ‘network capital’ consisting of six elements, namely movement

competence, location-free information and contact points, communication devices, appropriate, safe and secure meeting places, physical and financial access, time/money/resources to manage the others, and friends and family members at a distance They argue that these six elements together produce a distinct stratification order that sits alongside social class, social status and party Social groups with limited economic capital but with a high level of network capital enjoy significant advantages in the contemporary world My take on this argument of ‘network capital’

is that it is nothing but the extension of social capital, emerging from particular habitués and embodied in the individuals posited in it

The above-mentioned approaches of network analysis provided me with an array of means to explain how social connections are forged Each of these approaches situates itself where the social network is either about the functional structure or about networked individuals as free-floating entities These approaches talk about groups which have relative advantages in networks, but do not give their full history, i.e., how they have come into being and where they learned to decipher the encrypted codes of communication For my argument, I prefer to use the concept of social capital emerging from these networks, providing me with the history of individuals embedded in network, their commonality, discontents and relativity An individual without any network is a non-existent entity; s/he is only identifiable in relation to others Later, I shall illustrate how marriage and friendship are instrumental for amassing different kinds of social capital

Bourdieu’s concept of a different form of capital—economic, cultural13 and social capital14—is pertinent for understanding this middle class and its network The individual social capital of this class is determined by the size or their relationship network, the sum of its accumulated resources (both cultural and economic), and how successfully (i.e., quickly) the individual can set them in motion to preserve the status quo According to Bourdieu, social networks must be continuously maintained and fostered over time in order for them to be called upon quickly in the future The four forms of capital—economic, cultural, social and symbolic—together empower (or otherwise) agents in the struggle for position within the social space Thus, the class struggle is expressed through the individual and collective classification struggles aimed at transforming the categories of perception and appreciation of the social world These perceptions and appreciations emerge from the ontological existence in particular habitués which I shall elaborate on in later chapters

Social capitals are produced, maintained and regenerated through various social intercourses Esser (2008, 23) defined social capital as “ resources that an actor can mobilize and/or profit from because of his embeddedness in a network of relations with other actors.’ This definition is very apt to understanding the phenomena at hand

It is not limited to the individual resources of the actors; rather, it involves the performance of the entire network, including all the actors These social relations or networks entitle an actor to borrow or capture other actors’ resources (e.g., their wealth, power or reputation) which then generates returns for the actor (Lin 2001

13 Bourdieu used the term ‘cultural capital’ to represent the collection of non-economic forces, such as family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to education, different resources, etc., which influence academic success

14 Bourdieu defines ‘social capital’ as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual

Social life is an embodiment of various exchange systems, where power and prestige are restored upon engagement or disengagement of participants in this process (Blau 1964) In this system, people accumulate power through favours and services which are transacted in the future Thus, meticulous maintenance bears consequence upon one’s social intercourse

The exchange of social capital always works at a very abstract level Unlike economic

or cultural capital, it is difficult to keep stock of social capital in a tangible manner It

is problematic to weigh the worth of relations in a network Nonetheless, people invest in such networks and extract benefits from them These investments are not necessarily the outcome of rational choice either; sometimes decisions are made spontaneously, emerging from beneath an instinctive level (which is the interplay between habitués and practices) Coleman (2000), Lin (2001) and Esser (2008) distinguished different forms of resources that are circulated in networks, although all

of them present similar arguments about why and how these resources can be beneficial Coleman (2000) distinguished three resources: (a) obligation and expectations, which depend on the trustworthiness of the social environment; (b) information-flow capability of the social structure; and (c) norms accompanied by sanctions He argues that the actor or actors who generate social capital ordinarily capture only a small part of the benefits, a fact that leads to an underinvestment in social capital (Coleman 2000, 36) Lin (2001) takes a similar stance, showing how embedded resources, such as information flow, influence, social credentials, reinforcement of identity, and recognition by agents of the network, can enhance the outcome of the action Esser (2008) also elaborated these listed factors and came up with the idea of six resources circulated in any network He argues that each network

is likely to provide access to information, and members are supposed to be ready to take risks for others, provide mutual support, help the members and have solidarity; make provisions for social control and provide a climate of trust in the network; and finally, validate norms, values, and morality within a group, organisation, or society These resources benefit a homogenous group of people, family or a circle of friends

as members of those groups They try to protect the group interests in order to maintain the solidarity of the group In the next section, I take up these issues in greater detail and cast brief light on the theories of marriage and friendship

Marriage

According to Bourdieu, “marriage strategies are inseparable from inheritance strategies, fertility strategies and even educational strategies; in other words, from the whole set of strategies for biological, cultural and social reproduction that every group implements in order to transmit the inherited power and privileges, maintained and enhanced and passed to next generation … the dispositions inculcated by the conditions of existence, a kind of socially-constituted instinct which causes the objectively calculable demands of particular forms of economy to be experienced as

an unavoidable call of duty or an irresistible impulse of feeling” (Bourdieu 1989,160161) He argues that “affinal relations are the product of strategies oriented towards the satisfaction of material and symbolic interests and organized by reference

to a particular type of economic and social condition” (Bourdieu 1989, 167) He also argues that the each group of partners (who are usable because of their close proximity and social influence) devotes enormous time, energy and work to maintain

a privileged network of a particular relationship This network consists of both genealogical relationships (practical kinship) and non-genealogical relationships