Wacquant, urban marginality, territorial stigmatization and social work

Abstract

Loic Wacquant is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written extensively on issues related to urban poverty, race and the expansion of imprisonment. Wacquant is heavily influenced by the work of the late Pierre Bourdieu. Specifically, Wacquant employs Bourdieu's theoretical tools of analysis to provide a critique of contemporary neo-liberal social and penal policy. This article considers the potential applications of Wacquant's scholarship to contemporary social work practice. For the purposes of this analysis, Wacquant's work is divided into three broad areas: the analysis of neo-liberalism and precarious forms of employment, the development of the penal state and his critical approach to doxa. Bourdieu uses the term doxa to refer to those views or opinions that are taken for granted within any society. They thus create the limits of, or provide a strong framework for, political and policy debates. It is argued that Wacquant's theorisation provides an explanation of the forces that have led to the concentration of areas of poverty in the midst of relative affluence. In addition to facing long-standing problems of high unemployment, poor housing and a lack of social amenities, these areas -the banlieues in France, housing projects in the USA and estates in England -are stigmatized in public and media discourse. Wacquant's work can be used to challenge the development of a form of social work that places emphasis on bureaucratic managerialism. In addition, it should encourage social work as a profession to re-engage with criminal justice issues. Finally, the critical approach to doxa provides a model for social work to challenge the limitations of current debates.

Understanding the health and wellbeing challenges of the food banking system: A qualitative study of food bank users, providers and referrers in London

“…Specifically, how marginalized communities become physically, geographically and economically disconnected from wider society via structural barriers to full citizenship. The statecraft of neo-liberal governance has resulted in the growth of social insecurity through the pathways of both insecure working conditions and punitive welfare regimes ( Cummins, 2016 ).…”

“…Food banks and food banking can be understood as integral parts of the broader lived experience of poverty in the UK ( Dowler and O'Connor, 2012 ; Purdam et al, 2016 ). Thus food poverty and the increased prominence of the food banking system within the welfare system can be seen as symptomatic of wider changes to public and welfare services, the expansion of the private sector, and the stripping away of employment protection and rights that underpin Wacquant's model of advanced urban marginality ( Cummins, 2016 ). Receipt of emergency food aid is therefore an extreme manifestation of poverty and inequality ( Garthwaite, 2016 ).…”

Disability Consciousness on the Frontlines of Urban Struggle

“…In reviewing the literature on struggle in stigmatised neighbourhoods, references to disease, disability and mental illness are often lengthy. Theorists of stigmatised inner city neighbourhoods, Cummins (), Hansen et al. (), and Wacquant () emphasise the characterisation of dispossession that is deeply pathologised, particularly in advanced capitalist countries where welfare infrastructure has significantly eroded.…”

“…(), and Wacquant () emphasise the characterisation of dispossession that is deeply pathologised, particularly in advanced capitalist countries where welfare infrastructure has significantly eroded. For example, Cummins (:76) notes how, in the UK, assessment mechanisms designed to reduce the number of people on disability welfare benefits by declaring them “fit to work” have contributed to an escalating death toll of poor disabled people, suicide and “nearly three‐quarters of a million more prescriptions for anti‐depressants”. These trends underscore how austerity measures, coupled with efforts to clear stigmatised neighbourhoods for gentrification, have vastly expanded the forms of pathologisation and disablement that poor people experience (such as addiction, anxiety, depression, and trauma), while at the same time targeting people for slow death (Puar ) and removal by dramatically restricting the criteria for who is deemed deserving of social services, affordable housing and welfare benefits.…”

“…; Robertson ). Despite the long history of these diagnoses and conditions and their exponential growth under austerity and neoliberalism (Cummins ; Hansen et al. ), the majority of these diagnoses do not take the typical form of disability — the white, straight, male, middle‐class, law‐abiding wheelchair user (see Gorman )—and are not a visible part of the “disability community”, disability activism and disability studies…”