Invention of the 'Underclass'

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).

“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 thewriting is robust and engaging.... the book is an excellent addition to scholarship in this areaand will undoubtedly become an important reference point for future sociologicalwork 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

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsProloguePART ONE ~ THE TALE1. Between concept and myth: genealogy of a shifty category2. “The tragedy of the underclass”: policy theater and scholarship3. The three faces of the “underclass” 4. The strange career of a racialized folk devil5. Implications for the social epistemology of urban marginalityPART TWO ~ LESSONS FROM THE TALEQuandaries and consequences of naming Forging robust conceptsEpistemic opportunity costsBandwagons, speculation, and turnkeysCoda: Resolving the trouble with “race” in the 21st centuryAppendix: The afterlives of the “underclass”      BibliographyIndex