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List of contents
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 (México) 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
About the author
Thomas Birtchnell is Lecturer in Geography and Sustainable Communities at the University of Wollongong, Australia.
Javier Caletrío is Research Fellow at the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University, UK.
Summary
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.
Additional text
"Important and accessible for students of elites everywhere... Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." – J Borchert, emeritus, Cleveland State University, Choice Review
