EL DIABLO EN LA CIUDAD: LA INVENCIÓN DE UN CONCEPTO PARA ESTIGMATIZAR LA MARGINALIDAD URBANA

by Loïc Wacquant

En el último tercio del siglo XX, científicos sociales, analistas políticos, filántropos y políticos estadounidenses se obsesionaron con un nuevo grupo temible y misterioso que, según decían, asolaba las zonas pobres de las ciudades. Pronto, esta categoría de víctimas sociales amenazantes, junto con toda la imaginería diabólica que se tejió a su alrededor, se expandió por el mundo y agitó el estudio internacional de la exclusión en la metrópoli postindustrial.
En este libro mordaz que combina historia intelectual, observación participante y análisis conceptual, el brillante sociólogo Loïc Wacquant recorre la invención y las metamorfosis de ese demonio la "underclass" urbana. Rastrea cómo un concepto que se originó en la academia permeó los medios y el debate público, fue reinventado por grupos de reflexión y regresó a los estudios sociales al servicio de la estigmatización de grupos pobres y racializados para imponer una agenda funcional a la implementación de políticas de segregación. ¿A qué se debió el efecto contagio que arrastró por un precipicio científico a una generación entera de estudiosos de la raza y la pobreza? ¿Cuáles son las condiciones para la formación y el estallido de estas burbujas conceptuales? ¿Qué papel desempeñan los grupos de reflexión, el periodismo y la política en la imposición de problemáticas prefabricadas a los investigadores? ¿Cuáles son los dilemas particulares que plantea la denominación de poblaciones desposeídas y deshonradas en el discurso científico?
A través de una afilada arqueología del concepto de underclass, El diablo en la ciudad realiza un deslumbrante ejercicio de reflexividad, a la vez que una feroz crítica y una audaz propuesta epistémica. Compacto, meticuloso y provocador, es un llamado de alerta para que los científicos sociales defiendan su autonomía intelectual frente a las presiones externas.

Genres: Sociology, Economics, Politics, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published March 4, 2024

About the author

Loïc Wacquant is a sociologist, specializing in urban sociology, urban poverty, racial inequality, the body, social theory and ethnography.

Wacquant is currently a Professor of Sociology and Research Associate at the Earl Warren Legal Institute, University of California, Berkeley, where he is also affiliated with the Program in Medical Anthropology and the Center for Urban Ethnography, and Researcher at the 'Centre de sociologie européenne' in Paris. He has been a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows, a MacArthur Prize Fellow, and has won numerous grants including the Fletcher Foundation Fellowship and the Lewis Coser Award of the American Sociological Association.

Reviews

[Marie Clare]

I want to bring the most rancid vibes possible to the kids table at the Boyle family Thanksgiving dinner

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many words and phrases in English that we can take to be synonyms – but they rarely are. I never really thought too much about the term ‘underclass’. As the author says here, a preposition ‘under’ is used as an adjective, making it an odd construction to start with. It is intended to be derogatory. As he also says, it seems to cover much the same ground of Marx’s lumpenproletariat, but there are differences, not least since Marx placed these within his overall understanding of how classes work within society. And that is one of the main criticisms of underclass in this book. That as a sociological category, it doesn’t do nearly enough work. The author also mentions that words acquire their meaning through usage, but most of the use of underclass reinforces the narrowness of the definition and the virtually anti-sociological nature of it as a descriptor. Ironically, enough, it is rarely used in relation to other classes in society – and so the ‘class’ part of the category is almost misplaced. It is interesting to note that ‘category’ is from Greek and means to accuse, to accuse someone of belonging to a set.

The term seems to have come into use mainly in Reagan’s time – something of a warning in that already – peaked in the 1990s and has suffered a decline since. Although, this decline has seen something of a resurgence recently. It is used to define the Black American urban poor. And is used to stereotype them as without work, dysfunctional and a danger to society at large. The racialised nature of the term is definitional.

The part of this book that I particularly liked was his discussion of how few books have been written on the very wealthy, while there are so many on poverty. It is as if these two ideas are disconnected – with one hardly being worthy of comment – rather than intimately interconnected – with one necessitating the other. Again, this is down to our recent rejection of all things class related. Noticing relationships might lead one to look to systemic solutions to problems, rather than merely allocating individual blame. The lack of a class perspective isn’t the only problem here – there is also a kind of blindness to the historical foundations of the underclass as a category too. The idea that Black Americans are work-shy or incapable of sustaining lasting relationships is taken as moral failings, rather than socially conditioned.

The term he proposes as an alternative is the precariat. This places whole sections of current society within a framework that categorises people according to social fields in relationship with each other and in competition with each other too. This comes from Bourdieu and not only echoes the proletariat, but also the idea of standing on shifting stands, where one’s footing is never secure. Rather than being a simple spatial metaphor of under and over – it gives a better, visual representation of the enforced insecurity of life for people in these social locations. It also points to the fact that the system itself creates such locations and that these are decisions the whole of society are responsible for – not just those forced to suffer under them.

An interesting book using ideas from Bourdieu to challenge a characterisation that does more to hide than to illuminate.

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely interesting and compelling.The author writes and uses words in way that can be hard to understand if not familiar with research and sociology concepts. I had to slowly grind through to fully get a grasp of what he was trying to argue.

Time to write my book report on it.

[Jennifer Stoloff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit slow going due to a lot of specialized jargon but worth the read. Explores and deconstructs the term “underclass”; what it means and doesn’t, how it was used, and what it elides.