Elite Mobilities

Thomas Birtchnell, Javier Caletrío, Thomas Birtchnell, Javier Caletrío

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415655804
• eBook ISBN: 9781136155413
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Small in number but great in influence, mobile elites have shaped the contours of global capitalism. Today these elites continue to flourish globally but in a changing landscape. The current economic crisis—and rising concerns about the moral legitimacy of extreme wealth—coincides with stern warnings over the risks posed by climate change and the unsustainable use of resources. Often an out-of-bounds topic in critical social science, elites are thought of as too inaccessible a group to interview and too variable a minority to measure.

This groundbreaking collection sets out to challenge this perception. Through the careful examination of the movements of the one per cent through the everyday spaces of the ninety-nine per cent, Elite Mobilities investigates the shared zones elites inhabit alongside the commons: the executive lounge in the airport, the penthouse in the hotel, or the gated community next to the slum. Bringing together the pioneer scholars in critical sociology today, this collection explores how social scientists can research, map, and 'track' the flows and residues of objects, wealth and power surrounding the hypermobile.

Elite Mobilities sets a new benchmark in social science efforts to research the powerful and the privileged. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in mobilities, transport, tourism, social stratification, class, inequality, consumption, and global environmental change.

Chapter 1

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Introduction

The movement of the few

Thomas Birtchnell and Javier Caletrío

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Nobiliorem, mobiliorem … the nobility were the mobility.

(Cicero 1755: 233 citing Cato)

In places of mass transit and intense movement – railway stations, airports, harbours, city streets, casinos, skyscrapers, beaches, malls – elite mobilities take place and go ethically and morally unquestioned: they are an accepted facet of everyday life. Within mobility-as-usual there are cordons in place which insulate the few from the travails of travel; these privilege speed, comfort, ease, productivity, elevation and other contemporary virtues for those who can afford them. Such demarcations are ideologically unquestionable (although far from unquestioned) by the majority of the peripatetic or the still. Elite mobilities reinforce the popular images – super-yachts, limousines and biz-jets – of wealthy, powerful and high-status individuals who are super-included in societies and move between them through nested corridors (networks within networks) to distinct nodes or hubs with equally stratified features. Such destinations culminate more often than not in enclaves, compounds, gated communities, gentrified quarters or centres of exclusivity: degrees of stratification simultaneously, and disconcertingly, utterly restricted and yet highly accessible in terms of public visibility and awareness. The characteristics of premium networked spaces and fast-lane corridors for the few and their movement¹ trickle down to the rest of society and perceptually enthral despite flagrant conflict with concerns about the global commons and the wellbeing and equality of the many. All sorts of secrecies ensure that elite mobilities are made unfathomable and beyond audit. Elite mobilities inform cultures of luxury, success and ‘the good life’ and enforce a self-stylization of global elitism founded on hypermobility, meritocracy and entrepreneurial heroism. In the present liquid era nothing in this styling can stay still for long, neither money nor a regionally fixed identity; therefore, what is needed is a critical mobility-sensitive approach to the residues of evidence emitted, discarded, or put on show in stratified circulations. This book holds the elite mobilities of the few up to scrutiny by collecting together scholars at the forefront of mobilities research invigorated by this aim.

Within the mobilities turn there has been a rich, yet narrow, seam of engagement with elite mobilities. Founding scholar John Urry was concerned with high-status reference groups across societies in his early work prior to establishing the mobilities paradigm (1973). He was one of the first to note that ‘being able to travel, particularly for non-work reasons, was only available to a narrow elite and was itself a mark of status’ (1990: 24). Because the few play a formative role in how and why mobilities happen their own forms of movement become foundational, referential, or simply ‘normal’ ingredients within the flow-architectures of society, empowering some to be more mobile at the expense of others (Massey 1993; Cresswell 2001; Sheller 2008: 29).

While most books begin by claiming an absence of research, the authors in this volume flag recent work by colleagues at the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), which has already started the ball rolling in revamping research on elites. They highlight that elites have been widely researched in the past, but the lapse in quality and memorability of research over the last three decades stems from a lack of clarity about the subject in question – a failure of theory and also a failure of method (Savage and Williams 2008). Seeking to move forward the sociologist John Scott's (2008) solution is to be strict in how the term ‘elite’ is to be defined by limiting its use to those who exercise or hold power to avoid further dilution. And in uneasy concord, critics of the descendants of classic elite theory's purported folly in ignoring the global are being bidden to take heed that despite a recent glut of activity this body of work is well up to the task of supporting critical analysis on globalization for, as Jan Pakulski puts it, ‘elite theory was born “global”’ (2011: 3).

Without crusading too much, we recognize the value of classic elite theory and also concur that research on elites demands a different, subtler tack; we identify mobilities as a useful optic for this task in its utter centrality (a veritably global consensus) to how power is exercised and expressed in the world. Various collective nouns have been deployed by the authors in this volume and elsewhere for what we, following Eric Carlton's (1996) typology, call here the ‘few’ – the aristocracy, the nobility, the principals, the global superclass, the privileged, the top of the pyramid, the wealthy, the High Net Worth (HNW), flexians, the [super, uber, mega, ultra, greedy, filthy] rich, the 1 per cent(ers), globals and so on. At times there appear to be as many collective nouns as there are elite theorists; however, as with fauna, this should be understood to be due to a wealth, rather than a dearth, of curiosity. Despite this partisanship one thread that ties all of these classifications together is mobilities. There are a number of ways the authors in this volume deploy their curiosity.

First there is mobility-as-usual, and what is deemed normal owes its form to pioneering elites and their power agendas of force, speed, ease and other discourses. Mobility-as-usual is stratified not out of poor planning, unforeseen externalities, or as yet unfulfilled technological and financial expectations as commonly claimed by planners, politicians and policy-makers in countless apologetic reports for urban ‘splintering’ (Graham and Marvin 2001). Infrastructures are designed first with the agendas of the few in view before the social considerations of the rest are addressed. The few set a certain tempo to the movement of the many through space and to their bodily conduct; elite mobilities are instrumental in the setting of speed limits, the location of airports, the provision of urban toll-roads, the comportment and apparel of travel and so on. To challenge mobility-as-usual – whether in relation to concerns about climate change, urban safety or simply in bids for a humbler pace of life – is to question the affordances of the few whose capacity to lobby and influence policy are relentless and pervasive and whose elite mobilities set a now world-recognized standard founded on the growth of economic globalization.

Second, the openness of the world for the few is dependent on the ‘staging’ of mobility systems and the stratification of mobility, class and territory (as alpha, beta, gamma), which prejudices certain framings of everyday life over others, then reinforced by shared ‘structural stories’ that make sense of this staging (Freudendal-Pedersen 2009: 1;Jensen 2013). This staging, and its supporting structural stories, privilege elite mobilities and consequently the nitty-gritty of systems is geared towards being easeful for the few at the expense of the mobilities of the many. This prejudice is felt through atmospheres, habitus and temporalities.

Third, the few are interspersed, enmeshed and super-included in the commons, moving rapidly in and out of public spaces, privatizing and making use of them, rather than being exterior to them. The ‘enclosure of the commons’ in Europe – and elsewhere through the colonial encounter – which Karl Marx historicized was primarily an elite project engaged to mobilize a landed population in order to make it move to factories, cities and industrial farms (1887: 506). This social movement of the few went on alongside other forms of elite mobilities that made movement easeful, but also made others move, marking them as super-unincluded through exile and immurement elsewhere. This unsettling of a stationary majority reliant on the commons through elite mobilities continues apace as anthropologist Laura Nader summarizes in her now famous entreaty to ‘study up’: ‘Never before have so few, by their actions and inactions, had the power of life and death over so many of the species…’ (1972: 284). Her entreaty to ethnographers to study the ‘colonizers’ who continue to lay claim to the global commons (as much as the colonized dispossessed of it) still remains only partially heard and resonates with this volume.

Fourth, power discriminates through mobility. Or to put it another way: it is no coincidence that mobility in popular culture in much of the world is represented according to differing degrees of power: acceleration, might-is-right and velocity. In order to maximize power, elite mobilities are encrypted and enshrouded by secrecies through intermediaries who assure discretion in their labyrinthine services. From Swiss bank accounts to tax haven ‘treasure islands’ this is a supremely well-orchestrated version of disorganized capitalism.

Fifth, elite mobilities are not just present for the few, but have a residual quality perceivable in luxury products, travel modes, mannerisms, dress, customs, holiday destinations and even the language of those who otherwise cannot be considered elite in any true sense of the word. Elite mobilities are hegemonic in their impacts on other forms of movement and in the size of their ecological footprints. Because of this glut of mobility, residues from the circulations of the few are treasure-troves of research when approached in a critical way.

Critical thought is a powerful ally in mobilizing academic interest on elites. Today elites continue to flourish globally but in a changing landscape. The current economic crisis and rising concerns about the moral legitimacy of extreme wealth coincides with stern warnings over the civilizational risks posed by global warming and the imminent depletion of energy supplies in light of growing levels of demand acknowledged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) respectively. Against a turbulent horizon of climate-related catastrophes, expectations of global equality raise seemingly irresolvable dilemmas that question further the moral legitimacy of mobile elites. In this overarching context the authors raise a number of questions to frame the book.

What conceptual frameworks are best suited to survey and theorize mobile elites? With what tools and instruments can social scientists research, map and ‘track’ the flows of wealth, influence and objects mustered by the few? How might traces of mobile elites be collected, understood and interpreted in relation to symbolic power and ideas of luxury, prestige and privilege?

Mobility-as-usual

Despite a scientific consensus about the urgency to act on climate change or road fatalities no significant action is taken because of conflict with a commitment from above to ‘business-as-usual’ or more succinctly mobility-as-usual (Adams 1999; Urry 2004, 2008). This ‘practice-consensus’ (made up of many practices in concert that just seem to happen without pre-conceived planning, policy-making or debate) to the tune of elite mobilities is stratified, intensively global, high carbon and expansionist. As a consequence there are ever more flights, trips and commutes, demanding more runways, roads and suburbs, all necessary evils and the symptoms of progress. Elite mobilities are written into this version of everyday life by what appears to be no less than a ‘gaming’ of what is understood as appropriately civilized everyday movement through the world in order to accommodate the fringe interests of the few and the mainstream aspirations of the rest.

So, for instance, aeromobility, and what Peter Adey (2010) terms ‘air-mindedness’, began as an elite pastime (Cwerner 2009). An example of this nascent role of the few in air travel is the bizarre appearance of a primitive helicopter over the Scottish moors midway through Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film The 39 Steps, which arose from him learning that a successful industrialist was financing an ‘autogyro’ for the masses and even commuting to work in this fashion (Bond 2010). Tellingly, in Sao Paulo, Brazilian businesspeople have taken to helicopter commuting to bypass congested and dangerous city streets (Cwerner 2006). Hitchcock's air-mindedness is poignant in light of the global growth of biz-jet culture (Budd this volume).

Railways too, despite representing the democratization of travel, were designed originally for ‘goods and elite passengers’ (Schivelbusch 1979; Urry 2007: 104; Aguiar 2011). Even after the introduction of mass rail travel the USSR's People's Commissar, Leon Trotsky, had his own ‘Trotsky Train’ with personnel, restaurant car and line priority for unhindered touring (Service 2010). Indeed, rail travel in most countries continues to cater to an elite market through class divisions demanding different experiences and ‘atmospheres’ (Urry 1987; Watts and Urry 2008; Bissell 2010). The provision of velocity by the train (and later the automobile) was inextricably linked to their popularity as elite mobilities, lending notions of potency and the feeling and experience of power to those who could afford them (Larsen 2001).

Thorstein Veblen's historical horse-riding elite in The Theory of the Leisure Class are driven to exhibitions of force, consequently setting a standard of usual mobility in society through a wider mimicry of their movement styled on ‘an uncomfortable posture at a distressing gait’, which was originally functionally adopted for fast riding on poor roads (1919: 145). Thus the nouveau riche in the nineteenth century overtly came to display material wealth through forceful, ‘hyper’ mobilities as a ‘means of broadcasting social status’ (Centeno and Cohen 2010: 113). Like air-mindedness in the late 1890s and early 1900s, motoring began with an evolving ‘car-mindedness’ involving speed, power, wealth and aesthetic shock. This need for speed emerged among a pioneering group of men and women in elite circles who were investigating the transformative potential of new technology in order to embellish their status (Clarsen 20...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Changing mobilities
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: the movement of the few
• 2 Elsewhere: tracking the mobile lives of globals
• 3 Wealth segmentation and the mobilities of the super-rich: a conceptual framework
• 4 Elite formation in the third industrial revolution
• 5 Aeromobile elites: private business aviation and the global economy
• 6 Super-rich lifestyles
• 7 The ease of mobility
• 8 The uneven pragmatics of “affordable” luxury tourism in inland Yucatán (Mexico)
• 9 Visible–invisible: the social semiotics of labour in luxury tourism
• 10 ‘This is not me’: conspicuous consumption and the travel aspirations of the European middle classes
• 11 Tracing the super-rich and their mobilities in a Scandinavian welfare state
• 12 The super-rich and offshore worlds
• 13 Epilogue: the bodies, spaces and tempo of elite formations
• 14 Postscript: elite mobilities and critique
• Index