The Precarity of Privilege - Social Mobility and Migration

This doctoral research, 'the Precarity of Privilege', will use ethnographic methodology to investigate and explore the lived experience of social mobility. That is, it will offer data not yet legible in numbers, answering questions such as: what does it mean to be the product of social mobility? What role does gender, class, and ethnicity play in either cementing or hindering one's ability to be socially mobile while at university or in the workplace? What does it mean to 'pass' in the context of class, to not "look like" someone from a disadvantaged background? And, what is the fluidity of class and the implications of this?

The research will aim to surface the narratives of social mobility from a range of perspectives of underrepresented groups spanning the white-working class, and students of intersecting identities including minority ethnic, LGBTQ+, and low socioeconomic backgrounds. At a time where heightened xenophobia exists towards students of Asian heritage, where institutionalised racism forms various 'ceilings' for students of African and Caribbean heritage, and where there is a loathing and disregard towards the white working-class, this research is as prominent as ever. Its implications for educational institutions, both private and state-funded, the corporate world, and non-profit ventures, is vast. However, the core aim of the research is specific: to surface the 'hidden injuries of social mobility' that undermine its promise of long-lasting positive change.

Building on Claire Alexander's 'The Art of Being Black' - research carried out at Oxford approx. 30 years ago - and responding to Friedman's call for research that explores the lived experiences of people who are caught in a "social purgatory" (2014), this DPhil aims to offer a complementary, ethnographic take on social mobility. It also builds on John Goldthorpe's research. Forty years ago, Goldthorpe published a seminal research paper articulating that social mobility is unequivocally experienced as positive (1980). The research also implied that social mobility confers a stable and permanent sense of privilege. Undoubtedly, such quantitative sociological studies add a rich narrative to our understanding of social mobility and inform policy (Cabinet Office 2011). However, Friedman (2014) questions what perspectives and experiences we lose through dismissing any consideration of the psychosocial consequences of social mobility? Considerations that may only be parsed out through ethnographic research and reveal that there is a precarity to privilege.