Inauguration day reading…

Here are some of my favourite fieldnotes to illustrate one of these techniques … they show how butlers socially remove themselves from elites whilst remaining physically present; they may produce an elite lifestyle, but it is not theirs (10/18)

Curatorship, firstly, involves ‘the management of the employer’s class symbols’. A typical way that butlers do this is by laying the table according to a certain class etiquette, or otherwise helping their employer’s select the “best” wine for their meals. (6/18)

Mine and @dvandebroeck.bsky.social’s paper on ‘The Labor of Distinction’ is out now in ASR. Drawing from an ethnography that involved training and working as a butler, we tell a larger story about elites and inequality (1/18) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...