Rethinking elites in British sociology: Great Britain as a house-society

Smith, Daniel R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1004-9487 2024. Rethinking elites in British sociology: Great Britain as a house-society. The Sociological Review 72 (2) , pp. 340-358. 10.1177/00380261231162694

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Abstract

This article outlines a novel conceptual framework to examine English society’s ruling institutions. Usually called ‘The Establishment’, the term has been a thorn in the side of analyses of class, status and power in British sociology as it stands between polemic and an explanation for England’s peculiar exaggeration of status over class. Drawing upon Lévi-Strauss’s concept of a ‘house-society’, the article rethinks how England’s ruling institutions are called upon to do two things at once: disguise political-economic interests through the language of kinship and naturalise status and belonging. English society’s ruling institutions are overdetermined in the call to create legitimate and exclusive membership to something, perhaps anachronistically, called ‘Great Britain’. Tracing this to the origins of English class nomenclature in early modern political thought, the article applies this framework to a discussion of Eton College and the Etonians’ relationship to our present political crisis.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Publisher:	John Wiley & Sons
ISSN:	0038-0261
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	26 February 2023
Date of Acceptance:	20 February 2023
Last Modified:	29 Apr 2024 13:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157332

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