Neoliberal Chile Explained: Dr. Joel Stillerman on Precarious Privilege and the Middle Class

Dr. Joel Stillerman, Professor of Sociology at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, joins us to discuss key insights from his book Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile. Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile explores how Chilean middle-class families weave moral values, emotions, and politics into everyday economic decisions, from schooling and housing to work trajectories and neighborhood life. Through years of fieldwork and interviews, Dr. Joel Stillerman shows that these families experience a fragile, precarious privilege, clearly better off than the poor, yet constantly anxious about downward mobility, unstable jobs, and exclusion from elite spaces. At the heart of the book is the concept of “identity investments,” the idea that choices about where to live, which schools to select, and how to consume are guided not only by income and status but by deeply held moral commitments and visions of a good life. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, Stillerman develops a typology of four middle-class groups, Activists, Moderate Catholics, Youngsters, and Pragmatists, each combining economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital in distinct ways and enacting their own moral economies of aspiration, justice, and boundary-keeping. This podcast is brought to you by Global Management Consultancy. Disclaimer: 1. The background music incorporated in this video is the intellectual property of its respective developer and is protected under applicable copyright laws. Notwithstanding that it is a free-to-use version, Business Talk, Global Management Consultancy, and Deepak Bhatt do not own, and expressly do not claim, any rights, title, or interest in or to this music. 2. Dr. Joel Stillerman shared key insights from his book, “Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile”, in an engaging episode of the Business Talk podcast. The uploaded video contains copyrighted content, so changing any graphics, music, or on-screen appearance of the author or host is not allowed.