Loïc Wacquant

The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City

Discussions of inner-city social dislocations are often severed from the struggles and structural changes in the larger society, economy, and polity that in fact determine them, resulting in undue emphasis on the individual attributes of ghetto residents and on the alleged grip of the so-called culture of poverty. This article provides a different perspective by drawing attention to the specific features of the proximate social structure in which ghetto residents evolve and try to survive. This is done by contrasting the class composition, welfare trajectories, economic and financial assets, and social capital of blacks who live in Chicagos ghetto neighborhoods with those who reside in this citys low-poverty areas. Our central argument is that the interrelated set of phenomena captured by the term “underclass” is primarily social-structural and that the inner city is experiencing a crisis because the dramatic growth in joblessness and economic exclusion associated with the ongoing spatial and industrial restructuring of American capitalism has triggered a process of hyperghettoization.

Symbolic Violence and the Making of the French Agriculturalist: An Enquiry into Pierre Bourdieu's Sociology

This paper is a discussion of Pierre Bourdieus sociology, with emphasis on his theory of symbolic violence. Using Sylvain Marescas work on delegation and representation among the French peasantry as an empirical illustration, I examine Bourdieus key concepts (capital, field, habitus, symbolic power), his approach to social organisation and dynamics (social space, strategies of conversion and reproduction), and map out the basic structure of his framework. Several difficulties are discussed: the closure of the conceptual system, the form of explanations, the oversight of the state, the underestimate of material determinations, and the lack of a theory of historical transformation. Having underlined the meta- theoretical grounding of his model, I conclude by arguing that Bourdieu offers the means for a dialectical transcendence of interpretive and structural sociologies.

Que é gueto? Construindo um conceito sociológico

Ao inves de produzirem um conceito analiticamente robusto de x93guetox94, as Ciencias Sociais utilizam o termo de maneira descritiva, nao raro lhes conferindo significados do senso comum emprestados das sociedades em que o fenomeno e identificado. A partir da producao historiografica sobre a diaspora judaica na Europa renascentista, da Sociologia da experiencia negra na metropole fordista dos EUA e da Antropologia da marginalidade etnica na Asia Oriental, este artigo constroi um conceito relacional de gueto como um instrumento bifacetado [Janus faced] de cercamento e controle etno-racial. Por meio desse procedimento, o gueto revela-se como um dispositivo socio-organizador composto de quatro elementos (estigma, limite, confinamento espacial e encapsulamento institucional) que emprega o espaco para reconciliar seus dois propositos contraditorios: exploracao economica e ostracismo social. O gueto nao e uma x93area naturalx94, produto da x93historia da migracaox94 (como Louis Wirth defendia), mas sim uma forma especial de violencia coletiva concretizada no espaco urbano. A articulacao do conceito de gueto possibilita o desvelamento da relacao entre x93guetizacaox94, pobreza urbana e segregacao, assim como o esclarecimento das diferencas estruturais e funcionais entre guetos e aglomeracoes etnicas. Esse proceder tambem possibilita que realcemos o papel do gueto como matriz e incubador simbolico da producao de uma identidade maculada, indicando que seu estudo seja feito por analogia a outras instituicoes voltadas para o confinamento forcado de grupos despossuidos e desonrados como o campo de refugiados, a reserva e a prisao. WHAT IS A GHETTO? BUILDING A SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPT Abstract Rather than producing an analytically robust concept of x93ghettox94, the social sciences have used the term descriptively, not rarely attributing to it the common sense meaning that it is given in the societies where the phenomenon is identified. Through the historiographic production on the Jewish diaspora in renaissance Europe, the sociology of black experience in the Fordist metropoles of the USA, and the anthropology of ethnic marginality in East Asia, this article constructs a relational concept of the ghetto as a Janus- faced instrument of enclosure and etho-racial control. Through this procedure, the ghetto reveals itself to be a socio-organizational device that is made up of four elements (stigma, boundaries, spatial confinement and institutional encapsulation) that use space to reconcile its two contradictory goals: economic exploitation and social ostracism. The ghetto is not a x93natural areax94 produced by the x93history of migrationx94 (as Louis Wirth argued) but a special form of collective violence concretized in urban space. The articulation of the concept of the ghetto makes it possible to reveal the relationships between x93ghettoizationx94, urban poverty and segregation, as well as clarifying the structural and functional differences between ghettos and ethnic agglomerations. This way of proceeding also makes it possible to highlight th role of the ghetto as matrix and symbolic incubator for the production of a tainted identity, indicating that its study can be carried out through analogy to other institutions oriented toward the forced confinement of dispossessed and dishonored groups such as refugee camps and prisons. QUx92EST-CE QUE LE GHETTO? LA CONSTRUCTION Dx92UN CONCEPT SOCIOLOGIQUE Resume Au lieu de produire un concept analytiquement solide de «ghetto», les Sciences Sociales utilisent le terme de facon descriptive, et souvent elles lui attribuent des significations originaires du sens commum des societes ou le phenomene est repere. A partir de la production historiographique sur la diaspora juive en Europe renaissante, de la Sociologie de lx92experience noire dans la metropole fordiste des Etats- Unis et de lx92Anthropologie de la marginalite ethnique en Asie Orientale, cet article construit un concept relationnel de ghetto comme un instrument biseaute [Janus faced] dx92enfermement et de controle ethno-racial. Par lx92intermediaire de ce procede, le ghetto est vu comme un dispositif socio-organisateur compose de quatre elements (stigmate, limite, enfermement spatial et mise en capsule institutionnelle) qui se sert de lx92espace pour reunir ses deux propos opposes: exploitation economique et ostracisme social. Le ghetto nx92est pas un «espace naturel», resultat «de lx92histoire de la migration» (comme Louis Wirth pronait), mais une forme speciale de violence collective accomplie dans un espace urbain. Lx92articulation du concept de ghetto favorise le devoilement de la relation entre «la mise en ghetto», la pauvrete urbaine et la segregation, ainsi que lx92eclaircissement des differences structurales et fonctionnelles entre ghettos et agglomerations ethniques. Ce demarche permet egalement que nous soulignions le role du ghetto comme la matrice et le generateur symbolique de la production dx92une identite maculee, pour que son etude soit faite par analogie a dx92autres institutions tournees vers lx92enfermement de groupes de depossedes et deshonores comme le camp de refugies, la reserve et la prison.

A aberração carcerária à moda francesa

An analysis of the French prison systems ebullience since 2001 shows that to use incarceration as a social vacuum cleaner in order to rid society of the dregs resulting from the economic transformations of neoliberalism is in fact an aberration. Not only do French crimes rates fail to justify the boom in the countrys prison population, but comparative criminology confirms that there is no correlation between the incarceration rate and the crime rate. Automatic recourse to confinement in order to quash urban disorder is a remedy that nearly always aggravates the ill it is supposed to cure. It reinforces economic marginalization, social alienation, and the convicts feeling of injustice, since prisons disproportionately affect the economically and culturally most vulnerable social categories. It is unrealistic to treat misdemeanors with such a gross and ineffective instrument as imprisonment, and it is urgent to reconnect the discussion on delinquency to the broad social issue of this century that this discussion conceals: the emergence of de-socialized wage-earners, the social insecurity vector, and material and mental deterioration.

Crime e castigo nos Estados Unidos: de Nixon a Clinton

Este artigo analisa o crescimento exponencial do numero de detentos ocorrido nos Estados Unidos a partir de meados dos anos 70. Procura mostrar que esse crescimento nao corresponde a um aumento da criminalidade, mas a conjugacao de tres series causais, quais sejam: o declinio do “ideal de reabilitacao” dos prisioneiros, a instrumentalizacao do medo da violencia pelos politicos e pela midia e a funcao de mecanismo de controle racial assumido pelo sistema penal americano. Em suma, a hiperflacao carceraria revela a contraface do enfraquecimento do Estado de Bem-Estar Social e a sua substituicao por um Estado penal.

Três premissas perniciosas no estudo do gueto norte-americano

This article offers a critical examination of three premises that have dominated and vitiated the recent debate on racial division and urban poverty in the United States: a) to dilute the notion of ghetto simply to designate an urban area of intense poverty, which obscures the racial basis of this poverty and divests the term of both historical meaning and institutional contents; b) the idea that it is a disorganized social formation that can be analyzed in terms of lack and deficiencies rather than by identifying the principles that underlie its internal order; c) to exoticize the ghetto and its residents, that is, to spotlight the most extreme and unusual aspects of ghetto life as seen from outside and above, i.e., from the standpoint of the dominant. Endowed with plausibility by the weight of cultural history, reinforced by an individualistic national idiom that euphemizes class power and ethnoracial domination, these premises form a formidable epistemological obstacle to an adequate construction of the ghetto as a scientific object.

Poder simbólico e fabricação de grupos: como Bourdieu reformula a questão das classes

A reformulacao da questao de classe empreendida por Pierre Bourdieu exemplifica os tracos principais da sua sociologia e a maneira pela qual ele amplia, mescla e corrige visoes classicas num quadro proprio. O artigo revela a motivacao existente por detras dos deslocamentos conceituais-chave que Bourdieu efetua, de estrutura de classe a espaco social, de consciencia de classe a habitus, de ideologia a violencia simbolica, e de classe dirigente a campo de poder. Destaca tambem estudos recentes que investigaram, testaram e refinaram os principios centrais do modelo de Bourdieu e oferece uma bibliografia das suas publicacoes sobre classe, documentando um duplo deslocamento, empirico e analitico, para uma sociologia da realizacao de categorias, o que evidencia o poder constitutivo das estruturas simbolicas.

O lugar da prisão na nova administração da pobreza

The irresistible rise of the penal state in the United States manifests the implementation of a policy of criminalization of poverty that is the indispensable complement to the imposition of precarious and underpaid wage labor as civic obligation for those trapped at the bottom of the class and caste structure. The prison has thus regained a central place in the panoply of instruments for the government of poverty, at the crossroads of the deskilled labor market, the collapsing urban ghetto, and social-welfare services reformed with a view to buttressing the discipline of desocialized wage work.

A tempestade global da lei e ordem: sobre punição e neoliberalismo

Este artigo reflete sobre a recepcao internacional ao livro Prisoes da miseria como reveladora da expansao penal nas sociedades avancadas na decada de 2000. Ele revela que a tempestade global da “lei e ordem” inspirada pelos Estados Unidos, que o livro detectou em 1999, continuou a espalhar-se por toda a parte. Na verdade, ela estendeu-se dos paises do Primeiro Mundo para os do Segundo Mundo e alterou a politica e as praticas de punicao em todo o globo de uma forma que ninguem previa e que ninguem teria pensado como possivel ha cerca de 15 anos. O artigo estende a analise para o papel dos institutos de consultoria (em especial o Manhattan Institute) na difusao das nocoes de combate ao crime e das panaceias no estilo estadunidense na America Latina como um elemento da circulacao internacional dos pacotes de politica pro-mercado que alimentam a gerencia punitiva da pobreza. O artigo elabora e reve o modelo original do nexo entre neoliberalismo e penalidade punitiva, levando a analise da montagem do Estado na era da inseguranca social, desenvolvida no livro Punindo os pobres.

Book Reviews : Wes Sharrock and Bob Anderson: The Ethnomethodologists. Ellis Horwood Press and Tavistock Publications, Chichester and London 1986. ISBN 0-85312-949-5:

the space of lifestyles and, above all, his eloquent and elaborate methodological considerations in which this sociological construction is based. At the same time it can be read as a very potent critique (some readers may fail to see this) against the dominating linear mode of thinking within empirical sociology. In its place he will put a kind of ’structuralist’ thinking. An independent variable is seldom independent in the sense that linear models presuppose. Instead, it should be considered as belonging to a specific structure of different independent variables, which together define the class-fraction, and whose combined effects can be seen in the practices of the particular class-fraction. For instance, it is a violation of the socio-logic to separate an analysis of a sexor age variable from its class-fractional contexts. The production of masculinity and femininity, as well as ageing, are socially-shaped processes, and must initially be assumed to take as many forms as there are class-fractions. The Bourdieuan project is a very fascinating one. He is doing away with the pigeon-holing of the various academic disciplines, which he considers as a ’premature division of labour within the social sciences’. The range of phenomena he has studied is indeed wide. During this decade his interests have proliferated. Thus, he has been working on language, and he has applied his idea of the social field to the study of the religious, the economic and academic power structures. To this diversity of themes studied, there corresponds an equally impressive versatility of methodological approaches. He consciously disregards the various social sciences claim to a certain arsenal of empirical methods. He combines straightforward survey methods and the most sophisticated statistical techniques with anthropological and ethnographic methods. He uses excerpts from newspapers (articles, photographs, advertisements), maps, etc. in his theoretical demonstrations.