The Invention of the 'Underclass' (eBook)

Loïc Wacquant is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Researcher at the Centre de sociologie européenne, Paris. His books include Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (2008), Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (2009), and Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (expanded anniversary edition, 2022).

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Prologue

PART ONE ~ THE TALE

1. Between concept and myth: genealogy of a shifty category

2. "The tragedy of the underclass": policy theater and scholarship

3. The three faces of the "underclass"

4. The strange career of a racialized folk devil

5. Implications for the social epistemology of urban marginality

PART TWO ~ LESSONS FROM THE TALE

Quandaries and consequences of naming

Forging robust concepts

Epistemic opportunity costs

Bandwagons, speculation, and turnkeys

Coda: Resolving the trouble with "race" in the 21st century

Appendix: The afterlives of the "underclass"

Bibliography

Index

"Loïc Wacquant's exploration of the rise and decline of the 'underclass' concept features extraordinary archival research. This important and unique book is destined to become a standard reference in studies ranging from the sociology of knowledge to urban poverty."
William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged

"In this thoroughly historicized account, Wacquant dissects the politics, panic, and obscurantism that accompanied the 'underclass' debate in the closing decades of the twentieth century - at the expense of the communities the concept purported to represent. It is an essential guide to a more ethical, genuinely reflexive sociology."
Alice O'Connor, author of Poverty Knowledge

''The Invention of the 'Underclass' is a must-read for specialists and students of urban poverty, social policy, and social theory.''
Social Forces

"there is much to enjoy and admire here. The investigation is focused, rich and detailed and the
writing is robust and engaging.... the book is an excellent addition to scholarship in this area
and will undoubtedly become an important reference point for future sociological
work on the construction of undeserving and marginalised groups.''
Critical Social Policy
"Wacquant has erected a critical yield sign that social scientists should heed but are likely to ignore. . . . if we are to learn anything from Wacquant's must-read text, it should be that the line between use and abuse of a concept is perilously thin."
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

"[A]n interesting exploration of an uncomfortable episode in the history of social science."
Critical Criminology