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W mojej książce The invention of the underclass [2022] przedstawiam, odwołując się do „dziejów pojęć (niem. Begriffsgeschichte) Reinharta Kosellecka oraz socjologii refleksyjnej Pierrea Bourdieu, mikrohistorię narodzin, upowszechnienia się i zaniku owego uwidocznionego w tytule, podszytego rasizmem demona potocznej wyobraźni (ang. racialized folk devil) dającego o sobie znać na styku badań naukowych, dziennikarstwa i oficjalnej filantropii podporządkowanej polityce. Rzeczona historia pokazuje sposób uprawiania polityki wiedzy dotyczącej grup mieszkańców metropolii, wywłaszczonych i odartych z godności - w związku z nią proponuję trzy pojęcia, które mogą pomóc badaczom w analizowaniu używania i nadużywania innych konstruktów nauk społecznych, przyczyniając się tym samym do zwiększenia dbałości o higienę myśli: „efekt leminga odnoszący się do znanego fenomenu zachowań stadnych (przykładem szalony pęd ku „diasporze); „konceptualną bańkę spekulacyjną (jak w przypadku „kapitalizmu rasowego) oraz „problematykę szablonową (ang. turnkey problematics) (jak w przypadku „odpornego miasta\" i „miasta kreatywnego\"). Ponadto omawiam czynniki sprzyjające rozwojowi koniukturalizmu epistemicznego (ang. epistemic bandwagons), spekulacji oraz szablonów pojęciowych (turnkeys) i wskazuję kryteria tworzenia efektywnych pojęć i koncepcji, biorąc pod uwagę ich aspekt semantyczny (klarowność i neutralność), logiczny (spójność i specyfikę kategorialną) oraz heurystyczny (adekwatność empiryczną i płodność teoretyczną).

This review examines precarity through two foci. First, I focus on related terms of the lumpenproletariat and informal economy, each of which have left their mark on the notion of precarity as a bounded historical condition, and its related notion of the precariat, a sociological category of those who find themselves subject to intermittent casual forms of labor. I explore the ways in which these terms offer pictures of politics and the state that are inherited by the term precarity, understood as the predicament of those who live at the juncture of unstable contract labor and a loss of state provisioning. I then turn to the second pole of precarity to chart a tension between asserting a common condition of ontological precarity and the impulse to describe the various ways in which vulnerability appears within forms of life.

The late 2000s Great Recession brought rising neighborhood poverty in the midst of affluence, and the reemergence of a racial and ethnic “underclass” living in inner-city neighborhoods. Our approach redirects attention to a level of geography—cities, suburbs, and small rural towns—where local political and economic decisions effectively exclude the poor and minority populations. It uses newly released poverty data from the 2005–2009American Community Surveyto provide evidence of changing macro patterns of spatially concentrated poverty. We show that roughly one in four U.S. places had poverty rates exceeding 20 percent in 2005 through 2009, up 31 percent since 2000. Roughly 30 percent of America's poor reside in poor places, and concentrated poverty is especially high among poor African Americans. Overall increases in place-based poverty nonetheless were muted over the decade by declines in concentrated poverty among poor Hispanics (a pattern that reflects spatial diffusion to new destinations). We also show that America's poor were sorted unevenly from place-to-placewithinlocal labor markets (i.e., counties); poor-nonpoor segregation rates between places increased from 12.6 to 18.4 between 1990 and the 2005–2009 period. Segregation was especially high among disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics. Our empirical results make a case for more scholarly attention on newly emerging patterns of concentrated poverty at theplacelevel.

Using data from a survey of rural–urban migrants in a city in China, this paper investigates the relationships between migrant–resident ties and migrant integration. Migrant integration is assessed with respect to three dimensions: acculturation, socioeconomic integration and psychological integration. Migrant networks are divided into three categories: kin resident ties, non-kin resident ties and non-resident ties. The relation between resources embedded in migrant networks and socioeconomic integration is also examined by translating position-generator data into network resource indices. The results reveal that non-resident ties still make up the majority of migrant networks and migrant–resident ties are significantly associated with migrant integration. The roles of non-kin resident ties in migrant integration are more consequential. They have positive effects on all three dimensions. Considering the different effects of migrant networks on different dimensions of integration, many migrants risk being trapped in permanent poverty and falling into the underclass in city societies.

Common accounts of police and prosecutorial nonenforcement discretion tend to valorize individual declination choices as demonstrations ofmercy and resource constraint. Simultaneously, these accounts critique blanket nonenforcement policies as being outside the bounds of executive authority. Both accounts fail to consider the origins and implications of nonenforcement decisions made by police offtcers and prosecutors in individual cases that, when taken together, amount to significant underenforcement ofian otherwise valid law. This Article fills the gap between these differing perspectives by empirically examining the hidden and habitual underenforcement of technically valid drug-free-zone (DFZ) laws in one Southern county. Data matching the locations offelony drug arrests with residential, school, and commercial drug-free zones shows chronic underenforcement of DFZ laws during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Interviews withpolice and prosecutors in this county exposé their reasons for nonenforcement. These reasons predominately include ignorance, benign neglect, institutional mistrust of other system actors' motives and competence, and pessimism about the ability of the laws to effect deterrence. Finally, interviews with active drug offenders within the county reveal their limited understanding of the nature of DFZ laws, the terms ofliability, and the consequences ofbeing charged with a violation. While chronic underenforcement of DFZ laws is surely preferable to widespread application of an overly punitive drug policy, these laws can stigmatize the underclass even ifnot meaningfully enforced. Moreover, if enforcementwere to be reinvigorated, the zone locations would likely create considerable disparities in criminal legal processing. Only structural legal change can mitigate these concerns.

Across advanced economies, affordable housing shortages are pushing low-income voters out of cities. Left governments frequently exacerbate these shortages by eliminating public housing. Why does the Left pursue policies that displace its voters? We argue that the Left’s long-term rebalancing towards the middle class and away from an increasingly stigmatized “underclass” has significantly attenuated the trade-offs inherent in reducing affordable housing. Focusing on the UK, we demonstrate that by alienating low-income voters politically and reshuffling them across districts, housing crises have significant costs for Labour. Yet, drawing on interviews, we show that displacement is nonetheless compatible with electoral interests: the displaced make room for richer voters whom politicians believe will also support Labour. A quantitative analysis of Greater London’s 32 local authorities and 624 wards further documents trends in line with coalitional rebalancing. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that electoral foundations are key to understanding housing crises and gentrification.

Understanding the factors that lead Americans to racialize putatively race-neutral policies is increasingly important in a diversifying society. This paper focuses on the case of disaster relief for Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. I draw on a framework of racial and ethnic subordination with two dimensions: inferiority–superiority, operationalized by skin color, and foreignness–Americanness, operationalized by language. I conduct a nationally representative survey experiment that varies the skin tone (light or dark) and language (English or Spanish) of otherwise similar actors who portray hurricane victims. The results suggest that two stigmatized attributes, dark skin and foreign language, do not always render an individual “doubly stigmatized.” Instead, for an already racialized group like Puerto Ricans, perceived foreignness may offset Americans’ stereotypes about the cultural pathologies of a racial underclass. Therefore, this paper underscores the importance of a multidimensional and intersectional approach to the study of racial and ethnic politics.

This article explores independent street-level drug dealers in the socially and economically marginalized neighborhood of Tepito in Mexico City. Research presented here is based on ongoing ethnographic work, and in-depth biographical interviews with drug dealers involved strictly in marijuana sales (17), those offering multiple illicit substances (39), and community members (8) in a neighborhood historically known for sales of contraband. We find that dealing is an adaptive strategy to resist criminal organizations encroaching on the drug market, and efforts by developers at gentrification; both of which would displace the residents from the neighborhood. Our results highlight the pivotal role of the illicit economy in marginalized communities and argues for a more nuanced interpretation of survival strategies among the urban underclass. More work is needed that approaches criminal activity as resistance among the economically dislocated.

Although once the subject of intense theoretical debate, the lumpenproletariat is largely missing from class-based analyses of popular resistance under authoritarianism. This article introduces a new definition of lumpenproletarians in the developing world, focusing on the nature of their work. It then argues that, given their socioeconomic position, these people should eschew participation in conventional social movements but ought to back protests over state abuse. We evaluate this theory using quantitative and qualitative data from two authoritarian developing countries with large grey economies but different histories of unrest: China and Egypt. In both places, we find lumpenproletarians indeed tend to join demonstrations over government and police mistreatment. Moreover, the Egyptian experience shows that the group is susceptible to mobilization for both revolutionary and counterrevolutionary ends.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the influence mechanism and role paths of the entrepreneurial behavior of the underclass groups (EBUG) involved in urbanization from a microcosmic perspective and propose sustainable development paths for the transition of underclass groups’ entrepreneurship from the subsistence type to the opportunistic type. Based on the theories of planned behavior, the entrepreneurial event model, and social cognitive theory, this study constructs a theoretical framework of “intention–situation–behavior” of the EBUG involved in urbanization. Through a questionnaire survey conducted in three major urban agglomerations in Zhejiang Province, the theoretical model is validated by using structural equation modeling (SEM). On the one hand, perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, and land expropriation all have a significant positive influence on entrepreneurial behavior. On the other hand, land expropriation has a significant moderating effect on entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. When the moderating role of land expropriation is not considered, underclass groups are more likely to engage in opportunistic-type entrepreneurship, which is primarily driven by perceived desirability such as achievement motivation and innovation orientation. In contrast, when land expropriation is considered, these groups tend to focus on survival entrepreneurship, which is mainly influenced by perceived feasibility factors such as social capital and market opportunities. The future survival and development of underclass groups is contingent upon urbanization, with the potential to influence the stability and sustainable development of society. The government should enhance the underclass groups’ perceived desirability through skill conversion, financial innovation, and digital empowerment; improve their perceived feasibility through the entrepreneurial resilience-building platform and the “Village Sage Mentorship System”; and refine the land expropriation policy by means of the securitization of collective assets, the multifunctional utilization of rural homesteads, and the cultivation of localized new business formats. By doing so, it can promote the transformation of the underclass groups’ entrepreneurship from the “subsistence type” to the “opportunistic type”.