ABSTRACT
Given the significance of the black middle class for the consolidation of South Africa’s
democracy, studies on class have focused on the black middle-class experience.
However, as with many other social phenomena, conceptualisations from these studies
have differed considerably. The challenge is the tendency of many of these
conceptualisations to reduce black middle-class experiences to the ahistorical,
homogeneous experiences of a group of conspicuous consumers. This is based on the
limiting notion that black experience is traditional and uncomplicated, and this
approach is then extrapolated to the experiences of the black middle class.
