O’Dougherty’s important work is framed by a set a questions intent on unsettling the material and symbolic dominance of the overdeveloped world,“whose hegemony,” she maintains,“makes their middle classes the international standard”(O’Dougherty 4). As the author queries,“What happens with these theories [of middle-class life] when we study a location outside the First World or Global North where among other differences, the middle class is a minority rather than a sizable demographic group?”(4) O’Dougherty’s analytic energies are thus directed at illuminating the complex, intramural contours of Brazilian middle-class consumption practices during a period of dramatic economic crisis. While her analysis is calibrated to capture the general posture of the national middle-class (with important internal variations), the author’s ethnographic focus is on residents of the city of São Paulo. As the author clarifies: