Convenors
Giovanni Semi, University of Torino
giovanni.semi@unito.it
Magda Bolzoni, Politecnico di Torino
magda.bolzoni@polito.it
Over the last decade, against the backdrop of intensifying social, spatial, and environmental inequalities, there has been growing interest in developing an ethnographic understanding of the worlds inhabited by the rich and the super-rich. Although the boundary between very high levels of material well-being and what any given society considers to constitute wealth remains ambiguous, it has become increasingly apparent that the wealthiest possess a remarkable capacity to appropriate resources to the detriment of everyone else.
The social sciences—from sociology and anthropology to geography and political studies—have been attempting to grasp this broad and heterogeneous set of phenomena through their respective theoretical and methodological toolkits. Yet, quite understandably, many of these tools were developed over the course of the twentieth century to analyse societies that, despite persistent difficulties and obstacles, tended towards greater equality or at least towards a gradual reduction of inherited inequalities. As a result, we frequently find ourselves studying new forms of inequality with theoretical and analytical instruments inherited from the past.
This has both advantages and disadvantages. One clear advantage lies in the possibility of continuing to generate comparative material in dialogue with earlier scholarship, as though contemporary processes of enrichment were merely “errors” or “eccentricities” within a historical matrix that remains fundamentally twentieth-century in character. This approach could, however, prove deeply misleading if what we are confronting is instead a new form of global society in which extreme inequalities are not the exception but the norm.
The session we propose therefore invites contributions that engage with this tension along two parallel tracks: new wine in old wineskins, or new liquor in new barrels? New processes of enrichment, or genuinely new forms of wealth accumulation? New money for old lifestyles or new money for new forms of luxury? Continuity or discontinuity?
The panel welcomes contributions that are theoretical, socio-historical, ethnographic, and, finally, explicitly methodological in orientation, with the aim of addressing the questions outlined above, and, more generally, investigating the worlds of the rich and super-rich.
Open questions
- What (conceptual and methodological) challenges does the (ethnographic) study of the rich and super-riches pose? What strategies and approaches may be adopted to address them?
- What (new) geographies of privilege can be traced? How are they evolving and, possibly, changing from the past?
- How does the labour of distinction take place? Who is involved and what relationships are developed with the elites?
- What (new) forms of inequality and dispossession are emerging?
- What (new) strategies of moral legitimation are developed by the rich and super-rich (if any)?
- How, as researchers, can we deal with the ethical implications of such a field of study?
Keywords
Super-rich, geographies of privilege, distinction, lifestyle, wealth accumulation and transmission, intermediaries, ethnography
Sub-disciplines / cross-disciplinary areas
Sociology, anthropology, human geography, elite studies, urban studies, migration studies, consumption studies
References
Alfani, G. (2023). As gods among men: a history of the rich in the West. Princeton University Press.
Atkinson, R. & Holmqvist, M. (eds., 2026). Elite Spaces: Social prestige, spatial obscurity and political risk. Edinburgh University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press.
Cousin, B., Khan, S., & Mears, A. (2018). Theoretical and methodological pathways for research on elites. Socio-Economic Review, 16(2), 225–249.
Delpierre, A. (2022). Servir les riches: Les domestiques chez les grandes fortunes. La Découverte.
Farrell, J. (2020). Billionaire wilderness: The ultra-wealthy and the remaking of the American West. Princeton University Press.
Mears, A. (2020). Very important people: Status and beauty in the global party circuit. Princeton University Press.
Semi, G., Bolzoni, M., & Tonetta, M. (2026). Aprire le porte dorate. Limiti e strategie della ricerca sociologica tra i super-ricchi nelle Alpi del lusso. Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 19(1), 23-43.
Serafini, P., & Maguire, J. S. (2019). Questioning the super-rich: representations, structures, experiences. Cultural Politics, 15(1), 1–14.
Sherman, R. (2017). Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence. Princeton University Press.
Convenors’ bio
Magda Bolzoni is Assistant Professor (RtdB) of Urban and Environmental Sociology at Politecnico di Torino. Her researches address issues of urban change, socio-spatial stratification and inequalities, and she has worked extensively on forced migration too. Recently, she developed a focus on luxury destinations, intermediaries, and new spaces of gentrification.
Giovanni Semi is Full Professor of Urban and Environmental Sociology at University of Torino. His most recent works span between traditional gentrification analysis and new forms of social, spatial and environmental inequalities. New urban aesthetics and wealth transmission are among the most recent fields of inquiry.