Strata slumming

The behaviour is one and the motives are two, which is what the definition spends most of its length distinguishing. In both cases somebody associates or identifies with people they perceive as the negative image, and the perception is the operative part, since the association depends on their view of the group rather than on the group's own account of itself. The first motive is power. A migratory endo-ideal descending to a lower group is seeking a centre to occupy, and the tell is where recognition is sought, since such a person will demand it from other endo-ideals rather than from the group they claim. Marsh's account of migratory endo-ideals supplies the context, since surplus endo-ideals under pressure swarm downward and head groups they had no role in creating and no claim to, and no negative image can self identify as the negative image without becoming an endo-ideal. The second motive is a humiliation fetish, and the tell there is caricature, since somebody seeking degradation will exaggerate and worsen the group's negative image rather than contest it. Both motives leave the negative image status intact, which is what separates strata slumming from anything that would help the group. The first requires the group to remain a group with a centre, and the second requires it to remain degraded.

Slumming has a documented history as a Victorian and early 1900s practice of wealthy people visiting poor districts for entertainment, studied by Seth Koven and others. Contemporary analogues include poverty tourism and the critique of white saviourism. Class passing and stolen valour describe false claims to a disadvantaged identity, and there is a growing literature on identity misrepresentation in academia and activism. Marsh's contribution is the two-motive split, since separating the pursuit of a leadership vacancy from the pursuit of degradation gives two different diagnostic tells for behaviour that looks identical, and both predict that the group's position will not improve.