ABSTRACT
Most recently, South Africa (SA) has seen a growth in studies trying to understand the
black middle class. These have been varied in their approaches and intentions. There
have been those that are more retail oriented, populist and reductionist in their
approach and conclusions. These have reduced the experience of the black middle
class to an undifferentiated mass of conspicuous consumers, foregrounding the
tradition of conceptualising class and general life experiences of black people as
homogeneous and fixed. Other studies have been more theoretically grounded and
progressive in their contribution to knowledge production and societal illuminations of
experiences of class, meanings of class and the complexities of the language used to
denote individual social class positioning (Phadi & Ceruti, 2011; Phadi & Manda,
2010; Krige, 2011b).
