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T his chapter deals with an aspect of social stratification that has received relatively little attention with regard to Mexico. We refer to expressive culture and behavior or, more succinctly, expression (see Nutini 1995, 2004, 2005; Roberts 1976; Roberts, Chiao, and Pandey 1975; Roberts and Chick 1979; Roberts and Golder 1970; Roberts and Nattrass 1980; Roberts and Sutton-Smith 1962). The hallmark of expression is that its motivation is basically noninstrumental; it is an end in itself for the individual carrying it out. At the same time, expression is closely related to social structure and can have real-world consequences. Furthermore , although expression is individually manifested, it is also shared culturally and behaviorally; in other words, it is a collective as well as an individual phenomenon. The collective aspect of expression is what makes it useful in the analysis of social class. In a nutshell, differences between real classes are always marked by readily observable differences in expression, and even the nominal classes delineated by researchers typically entail some expressive differences. As the most immediately and directly perceived attribute of social class, expression is the most usual means by which the members of a class initially recognize and acknowledge one another and, in turn, are readily recognized as a distinctive social segment by nonmembers. Expression is typically most pronounced in such clearly nonutilitarian aspects of culture as art, music, play, games, manners, etiquette, and adornment, but it also typically colors some aspects of warfare, economics , politics, stratification, subsistence, diet, and other mainly utilitarian arenas. Indeed, any aspect of culture or social structure may have an eight: EXPRESSION AND SOCIAL CLASS T H E P O S T R E V O L U T I O N A R Y P E R I O D ( 1 9 2 0 – 2 0 0 0 ) 210 expressive component that configures behavior, whether temporarily or permanently, intermittently or continuously. More specifically, expression is carried out in three basic contexts: those in which behavior is primarily expressive, those in which behavior is at times expressive and at times instrumental, and those in which behavior is primarily instrumental. Good examples of the first context are most forms of art and play (although there are professionals in both of these arenas whose goal is instrumental, making money). The traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the equestrian complex of Western aristocrats, and the indigenous Mexican cult of the dead are also examples of this first context. Most expression occurs in the second context, though, in which expressive and instrumental aims alternate or are intertwined. For instance, shopping for clothes can be alternatively expressive and instrumental, depending on clothing type or use; and food preparation for a family meal typically has both expressive and utilitarian components. The third context, in which behavior is primarily instrumental but is colored by expression, occurs less frequently and is less obvious to the casual observer, because the expressive components are often overpowered by the behavior’s instrumentality . Examples are the military’s special parade uniforms, as well as the hallmark colors of certain nonmilitary uniforms or aspects of them, such as the fireman’s red suspenders, the traffic cop’s bright blue coat, the priest’s black cassock, or the physician’s white smock. The names and slogans that soldiers paint on their equipment (e.g., tanks and airplanes) and ordnance (especially bombs) also exemplify this third context, as does the elaborate graffiti that urban gangs use to mark their territories. Before defining specific kinds or types of expression, we need to introduce two more general concepts: expressive array and expressive domain. The former comprises the totality of patterns and contexts in which expression occurs in a given society or social segment. The culture of every society, as well as every social estate or real class within it, has a distinctive expressive array, although its total content and form, as well as contexts in which it is manifested, may overlap with those of adjacent social segments or cultural traditions. Thus the expressive arrays of Italians , French, Spanish, English, and Germans, for example, are all unique in content and form, but they all share the bulk of a European array. Within each of these national units, specific estates or classes (depending on time period) will have their own unique arrays while also sharing much with the societies of which they are part. At the same time, estate or class divisions appear always to have been...

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