Sylvie Tissot

The role of race and class in urban marginality

Taylor and Francis CCIT_A_266744. gm 10.1080/13 04810701669017 ity: Analysis of Urban Trends 360-4813 (pri t)/1470-3629 (online) Original Article 2 07 & Francis 1 30 00 December 2007 Sylv eTisso st ss t@umb.u-stras g.fr rban Outcasts takes on the challenge of providing a scientifically based analysis of one of sociology’s most highly publicized subjects (especially in France since the 2005 riots): the situation of the so-called ‘ghettos’, ‘banlieues’ or ‘favelas’. Loïc Wacquant’s goal is the development of new scientific techniques for examining and evaluating the received knowledge about these marginalized spaces. To that end, he focuses on the structural mechanisms that produce impoverished urban areas, proceeding in three parts. The first investigates the institutional factors behind the transformation of American communal ghettos into what he calls ‘hyperghettos’. Next, Wacquant compares this situation to the French banlieues. He argues that marginality in the former emerges as a result of racial issues whereas class factors prevail in the latter. The third chapter offers a theoretical perspective on the rise of advanced marginality. In this review, I will first consider the important contributions made possible by Wacquant’s structural approach. Then I will examine the second part of the book, which aims at establishing the similarities and differences between American and French marginalized urban territories. In this section, Wacquant emphasizes the necessity of engaging in rigorous, scientific comparison. He argues—and frequently repeats throughout the book—that the last 30 years in France have witnessed the emergence of a false thesis, the supposed Americanization of the French banlieues, which in Wacquant’s view has deeply polluted public debates on poverty. After refining his description of the French debates over the last several decades and reassessing the influence of the transatlantic convergence thesis, I will then examine his argument regarding the respective roles of race and class in American ghettos and French banlieues. My fourth part focuses on the question of categories, to which Wacquant draws our attention several times in the book, insisting on ‘a clearcut separation between the folk concepts and the analytical concepts that social scientists must construct’ (p. 8). In the early 1990s, when ‘quartiers sensibles’ (at-risk neighbourhoods) came to the forefront of public debates, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu made the following observation about the problem of scale in social science research:

Y a-t-il Un « problème des quartiers sensibles »?: Retour sur une catégorie d'action publique

The outbreak of the November 2005 riots in France brought new attention to debates over the situation of underprivileged areas. This article offers a new perspective on this question. Rather than analyzing what happened in these territories, I examine how this social problem was constructed, publicized, and thus became an object of public policy since the end of the 1980s. I show that the political focus on underprivileged areas was not primarily or only an 1 Artículo traducido con el permiso de Berghahn Journals, from French Politics, Culture & Society, 2006, 24: 3. Sylvie Tissot, “Y a-t-il un problème des quartiers sensibles? Retour sur une catégorie d’action publique”. http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/rev_RASO.2013.v22.43186 138 Revista de Antropología Social 2013, 22 137-153 Sylvie Tissot ¿Existe algo como un “problema de los barrios... effect of increasing problems on the ground, such as unemployment, poverty or juvenile delinquency. The focus instead resulted from and contributed to a fundamental restructuring of the French Welfare State, by authorizing a recentering of public action on specific urban spaces — rather than across the nation— and on social ties, rather than economic reality. This constructivist study seeks to understand why politicians, experts or civil servants have associated the question of “underprivileged areas” with certain problems (like lack of communication and the weakening of social ties) while ignoring others (such as ethnic discrimination).

¿Existe algo como un “problema de los barrios sensibles”? Retorno sobre una categoría de acción pública

Los disturbios de noviembre 2005 en Francia han reactivado los debates sobre la situacion de los barrios llamados sensibles. Este articulo aporta una contribucion original a dichos debates. En vez de analizar lo que ha ocurrido en estos espacios, estudio como este problema social ha sido construido, hecho publico, y como se ha convertido en un objeto publico desde el final de los anos 1980. Muestro que la focalizacion sobre estos barrios desfavorecidos no se debe simplemente a problemas tales como el paro, la pobreza o la delincuencia juvenil. Dicha focalizacion responde a un reajuste de la accion publica centrado en unos espacios particulares en vez del territorio nacional en conjunto, y en la cuestion del vinculo social en vez de atender a la realidad economica. Esta aproximacion constructivista permite comprender como hombres y mujeres politicos, expertos asi como funcionarios, han asociado la cuestion de los “barrios sensibles” a ciertos problemas (falta de comunicacion y debilitamiento del vinculo social) al mismo tiempo que han ignorado otros (como la discriminacion social).