The book Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality by Loic Wacquant is basically a response to the moral breakdown that was happening in Europe. There was already a breakdown of both law as well as social order in the urban peripheries in Europe cities such as Lyons in France and Bristol in England. This breakdown in law and social order expressed itself in the widespread presence of destructive gangs of youth in these cities. He then explores the question as to the extent the rioting that occurred in the cities replicated itself on the other side of Atlantic. In finding answer to this query, Wacquant focuses specifically on the riots as happened in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King. Wacquant then argues that the incidences of rioting did not represent the Americanization process and indeed, ghettoization. He further argues that though it may be true that advanced marginality shares similar characteristics both in Europe and the United States, they are different in the sense that they are products of distinct historical and racial processes.
Wacquant posits on page 232 of the book that advanced marginality essentially encompasses new forms of exclusionary closure that translate into expulsion into the margins and crevices of physical and social space. In addition, he argued that new forms of exclusion are usually neither residual, transitional nor cyclical, for the reason that they constitute a function of diversification of labor as well as the segregation of poverty and unemployment from macro-economic trends. The central part of Wacquant’s argument is the illustrative case studies that he examines. To this end, Wacquant explores the South side of Chicago in the United States which he has referred to as the Black Belt. The other case study is that of banlieues of the Paris periphery popularly referred to as the Red Belt in this book. These names derive from the fact that historically, they formed part of the stronghold of the Communist party. The author Wacquant makes the case that the Black Belt has experienced a transformation from a Communal Ghetto which is sharply bounded and consists of several classes and political self-consciousness into a hyper ghetto in the period of post-civil rights. The hyper ghetto described by Wacquant into what the Black Belt has metamorphosed into in the post-civil rights, has witnessed a decline in jobs, the middle class among the black as well as a disappearance of the support of the state. The situation that had been left by these events was a dilapidated and isolated community. At page 91 of the book, Wacquant argues that the hyper ghetto into which the Black Belt came into being was a culture of terror replete with gun and drugs and further exacerbated by the abandonment by the state as well as punitive constraint.
This being the case, Wacquant then argued that the implications of the advanced marginality are that people must abandon the hope that is prevalent-namely that the economy will absorb the poor and the marginalized into the job market. He stated that the poor, the unemployed, and the marginalized must start organizing a guaranteed minimum income. Wacquant validates this point on page255 where he states that rich capitalist societies usually have the means and capacity to do this.
It may well be said that Wacquant basically makes a comparison of the both the poor against the working neighborhoods in the cities of Chicago and Paris in his book, the Urban Outcasts. Following this comparison, he comes to a finding that American racism worked in conjunction with capitalism to create hyper ghettos. He further made the case that the banlieues in Paris were uniform or heterogeneous anti-ghettos that were destabilized by the labor market as well as political forces thus rendering unnecessary the role of low-skilled workers. In addition, this left the low skilled workers out of the safety net and without protection. A chief argument by Wacquant that runs throughout this book is that urban marginality is not the same in every place. In support of this, he documents the situation prevailing in Chicago and the banlieues in Paris at the time. He further shows that the involution of America’s urban core was not as a result of an underclass but rather due to the combined withdrawal of market and state which was facilitated by public policy at the time that called for urban abandonment and racial segregation. The comparison of the two cities-Chicago and Paris by Wacquant acts to demonstrate that the structures and policies of the state have a tremendous influence in the determination of race, class and place in both cities and indeed, everywhere.
On reflection, I have the feeling that Wacquant not only overstated the collective hatred directed at the disadvantaged neighborhoods but also understated the contemporary processes of expunction. Further, the use of Chicago’s marginalized neighborhoods for the pilot program or as an archetype has the effect of masking the diversity that is present in the United States both in terms of race as well as class settlements. Nonetheless, from a personal perspective, I agree with the author’s argument that it is a critical role to uncover the role of the state in the process of shaping cities.
References
Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
