Epistemic bandwagons, speculation, and turnkeys
Some lessons from the tale of the urban 'underclass
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4481769 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Loïc Wacquant (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 173 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 82-92 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Thesis Eleven (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0725-5136 • E-ISSN: 1461-7455 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/07255136221121705 |
| OpenAlex | W4311079842 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 30 |
Drawing on the Begriffsgeschichte of Reinhart Koselleck and the reflexive sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, my book The Invention of the 'Underclass' draws a microhistory of the birth, diffusion, and demise of this racialized folk devil at the intersection of the academic field, the journalistic field, and the politics-policy-philanthropic field. This history illuminates the politics of knowledge about dispossessed and dishonored categories in the metropolis and suggests three notions that can help researchers parse the use and abuse of other social science constructs and thus practice better conceptual hygiene: lemming effects (illustrated by the wild rush to deploy 'diaspora'), conceptual speculative bubble (as with 'racial capitalism'), and turnkey problematics (such as the 'resilient city' and the 'creative city'). I discuss the factors that foster the development of epistemic bandwagons, speculation, and turnkeys, and specify the criteria that make for a robust concept in terms of semantics (clarity and neutrality), logics (coherence and type-specificity), and heuristics (empirical adequacy and theoretical productivity
Capitalism · Demise · Economics · Epistemology · Metanarrative · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Speculation · Underclass · Anthropology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts
The Rise of the Creative Class
The Truly Disadvantaged
Tendenzen zur Herausbildung einer Unterklasse?
Handbook of Creative Cities
The Practice of Conceptual History
The "Underclass" Debate
Shaking Up the City
Cities and the Creative Class
Defining and Measuring the Underdass
From School to Work
Concentration of Poverty in the Landscapes of 'Boomtown' Hamburg
The new urban crisis
What Makes a Concept Good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences
The Invention of the “Underclass
Fatal attraction
What is Wrong with Social Theory
Struggling with the Creative Class
Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics
The Land of Open Graves
Three Tensions in the Theory of Racial Capitalism
The Jargon of Exception-On Schmitt, Agamben and the Absence of Political Society
The 'diaspora' diaspora
Marginality, ethnicity and penality in the neo-liberal city
Racial capitalism
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |