Loïc Wacquant’s research while affiliated with University of California, Berkeley and other places

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Publications (211)


Elogio de la “construcción densa”
  • Article
  • Full-text available

November 2024

Disparidades Revista de Antropología

Loïc Wacquant

Basándome en mi libro The Poverty of the Ethnography of Poverty ([2023]2025), defiendo la "construcción densa" como enfoque racionalista para enmarcar y realizar etnografías. Infundida por la epistemología sociológica de Pierre Bourdieu, la construcción densa es una "construcción al cuadrado", es decir, una construcción científica (analítica) de una construcción ordinaria (popular). Anclada en el concepto de espacio social, la construcción densa pretende esquivar el peligro del "etnografismo", la tendencia a querer describir, interpretar y explicar un fenómeno basándose únicamente en los elementos discernidos mediante el trabajo de campo. Nos permite evitar cometer una u otra de las cinco falacias orgánicas de la observación participante: el interaccionismo, el inductivismo, el populismo, el presentismo y la deriva hermenéutica. Esquematizo cómo la descripción densa, la teoría fundamentada (“grounded theory”), el método del caso extendido, el análisis abductivo y la construcción densa configuran el dúo teoría-observación. Evitando la falsa oposición entre concepto y percepción, la construcción densa pretende construir herramientas heurísticas para fabricar nuevos objetos. En este enfoque, contrariamente a las opiniones convencionales, la teoría no es el amo altivo, sino el humilde servidor de la investigación empírica como aproximación a lo real.

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Figura 2: O continuum da etnicidade, da corrente à racializada.
Notas sobre a raça como etnicidade denegada

Sociologia Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto




A Checkerboard of Ethnoracial Violence

December 2023

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25 Reads

Contention

Ethnoracial violence is a dynamic and multilayered phenomenon whose definition is at stake not only in academe but also in reality itself. It comes in two varieties, expressive and instrumental, when it serves to buttress the other four elementary forms of racial domination, namely, categorization, discrimination, segregation, and seclusion. I point out that the phenomenon is relatively rare and burdened with heavy moral baggage. I introduce distinctions based on directionality (vertical, horizontal), scale of the actors involved (individual, group, or state), degree of spectacularization, and type of ethnic classification system (categorical, gradational). The imperial domain offers an especially fruitful terrain for the comparative investigation and theoretical elaboration of the dynamics of racialization, violence, and the state. Students of human brutality in history should join hands with comparative scholars of race to throw new light on their explosive intersection.


Racial Capitalism Decoupled: A Rejoinder and Reformulation

October 2023

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27 Reads

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3 Citations

European Journal of Sociology

I respond to the reactions of Gurminder Bhambra, John Holmwood, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam to my dissection of the concept of “racial capitalism.” I reiterate my critique of the latter on grounds of semantics, logics, and heuristics. I warn that racial capitalism erases historical variations, interludes, and contingencies to replace them with monolithic depiction and mechanical necessity. We cannot assume that racial division, colonial or metropolitan, is functional to capitalism across all lands and epochs. We need to recognize and theorize the varieties of regimes of racial domination , anchored by the ideal-typical distinction between “genuine race-divided societies” and “societies with race,” much as comparative political economists have taught us to dig into the varieties of capitalism. Combining these two dimensions serves us well to decouple capitalism and race analytically so that their historical conjunction may be studied empirically.


The Trap of “Racial Capitalism”

October 2023

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127 Reads

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10 Citations

European Journal of Sociology

This article weighs the meaning, potential, and pitfalls of the concept of “racial capitalism” for studying the nexus of racial division and the economy. The concept has spread like wildfire in Anglophone social science since its ≠ introduction in Cedric Robinson’s revisionist account of the rise of capitalism as racializing, but it remains epistemically inchoate and analytically problematic. The critique of leading uses and common corollaries of the term shows that it stipulates that which needs to be explicated, namely, the “articulation” of capitalism “through race,” which is not a structural invariant but ranges from coevalness and synergy to parasitism and disconnection. The notion cannot accommodate the varied bases of race as a naturalizing and hierarchizing principle of vision and division as well as the historical peculiarity of the economic variant of slavery in the Atlantic world. Advocates of “racial capitalism” need to put in the hard work of epistemological elucidation, logical clarification, and historical elaboration needed if they are to make the label more than a “conceptual speculative bubble.”


Citations (58)


... El porcentaje de personas en prisión y que no han recibido sentencia es importante porque da cuenta del uso desmedido de la prisión preventiva y de la lentitud del proceso penal, es un indicador que deja ver la dilación con la cual el sistema penal puede resolver si la persona es o no culpable pero mientras tanto ya vive en encierro. Por otro lado, el dato de la escolaridad se considera un elemento para mostrar que quienes están en la cárcel son sujetos previamente seleccionados con parámetros de clase social y origen etnorracial (Calveiro 2014, Wacquant 2011, Ariza 2011, Soss et al. 2011, Azaola y Bergman 2007, a quienes se les culpa por ser pobres y se les contiene mediante el encierro, individualizando su situación, sus actos, y el castigo que se les propina se transforma en "un problema político, enraizado en la desigualdad económica e inseguridad social, en un problema de criminalidad" (Wacquant 2006, 61). ...

Reference:

De la noción de trastorno mental al concepto de discapacidad psicosocial a partir de una intervención situada
EL MATRIMONIO ENTRE EL WORKFARE Y EL PRISONFARE EN EL SIGLO XXI
  • Citing Article
  • December 2012

Astrolabio

... 10 Así la define como "un instrumento para ver las relaciones", "un modo de pensar, un sistema de esquemas rigurosamente controlados para percibir el mundo social". Así, por ejemplo, el concepto de habitus resume una filosofía disposicionalista de la acción, pero también apunta a una serie de operaciones prácticas destinadas a reconstituir la trayectoria de los agentes a través del espacio social y las formas de aprendizaje corporal que han seguido, a fin de perforar la combinación de categorías cognitivas, habilidades conativas y deseos emotivos que los caracteriza por derecho propio (Wacquant 2011(Wacquant , 2014(Wacquant , 2022. En su Cours de sociologie générale, Bourdieu se burla suavemente de los "malabarismos teóricos" y rechaza firmemente la noción althusseriana de "trabajo teórico" desvinculado de la práctica de la investigación y que pende sobre la investigación empírica. ...

HOMINES IN EXTREMIS: QUÉ NOS ENSEÑAN LOS FIGHTING SCHOLARS (ACADÉMICOS LUCHADORES) SOBRE EL HABITUS
  • Citing Article
  • June 2014

Astrolabio

... Predictably, such wide-ranging appeal has raised doubts about conceptual rigor. Critics have queried whether one can discern a coherent understanding of "racial capitalism" across its manifold deployments and what is captured by the conjunction of "race" and "capitalism" that eludes the grasp of either concept taken in isolation (Go 2021;Hall 2022;Omstedt 2021;Ralph and Singhal 2019;Subrahmanyam 2023;Wacquant 2023b). Particularly controversial has been the oft-cited maxim that "all capitalism is racial capitalism," leading some sceptics to question the soundness of a concept that lacks an inverse (qua "non-racial capitalism") (Walzer 2020) and prompting others to dismiss the qualifier "racial" as redundant (Post 2020). 1 Even sympathetic commentators have expressed concern over the term's imprecision, one baldly declaring, "[t]he problem is that the term racial capitalism does not refer to a 'theory.' … Nor does the literature offer uniform concepts or a shared conceptual apparatus" (Go 2021, 38-9). ...

The Trap of “Racial Capitalism”
  • Citing Article
  • October 2023

European Journal of Sociology

... It is only with this understanding-that the commission, design, operation and interpretation of RCTs are all matters of choice-that we can fully appreciate the value of the evidence that an RCT can provide. Reflecting on our methods can help us realise that the way we construct knowledge through RCTs is itself a choice of our discipline (Burnett & Coldwell, 2021;Law & Ruppert, 2013), which enacts the current values of policymakers, funders and educators (Wacquant, 2022). Fully appreciating the choices that produce RCT failure and success will help us better interpret the evidence they produce. ...

Epistemic bandwagons, speculation, and turnkeys: Some lessons from the tale of the urban ‘underclass’
  • Citing Article
  • December 2022

Thesis Eleven

... 170). En esa misma dirección, para Wacquant (2022) el habitus está definido como "inclinaciones adquiridas, duraderas y transponibles para actuar, pensar y sentir de formas definidas… para reproducir o transformar la geometría de las categorías mentales, los lugares sociales y los lugares de la ciudad" (pp. 827-828). ...

Rethinking the city with Bourdieu’s trialectic
  • Citing Article
  • October 2022

City

... Na literatura há uma diversidade de definições acerca do conceito de neoliberalismo, desde uma concepção centrada no mercado e na economia até uma que engloba os âmbitos do mercado, do indivíduo e da sociedade civil, que ocasionam mudanças estruturais nessa realidade. Neste sentido, segundo Wacquant (2012) há um número indefinido de neoliberalismos que são "oriundos da hibridização de práticas e ideias neoliberais em curso com as condições e formas locais." (p. ...

TRÊS ETAPAS PARA UMA ANTROPOLOGIA HISTÓRICA DO NEOLIBERALISMO REALMENTE EXISTENTE
  • Citing Article
  • June 2013

Caderno CRH

... Es importante considerar que el fenómeno de la violencia en las cárceles latinoamericanas comparte elementos con algunas estructuras sociales paralelas y configura una suerte de microcosmos de la comunidad (Darke y Karam, 2016;Granja, 2019;Wacquant, 2021). De modo que las problemáticas que enfrenta la sociedad tienen su correlato al interior de la cárcel, donde la vida también está sujeta a endémicas carencias como falta de recursos y servicios básicos (Ariza y Tamayo Arboleda, 2020;Heskia, 2011). ...

The Futility and Necessity of Human Rights in an Era of Carceral Hyperinflation
  • Citing Chapter
  • March 2021

... Sociospatial segregation and exclusion have also been studied in the field of transport research (e.g., Church et al., 2000;Lucas, 2012). Since 2000, when Urry published the book Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century, an increasing number of authors have focused on mobilities as a concept that better captures the multitude of physical and virtual movements and the social and cultural impacts these new connections and movements entail Sheller & Urry, 2006;Urry, 2000). Mobility is essential for citizens' participation in society as it allows social relationships to be maintained and provides access to socioeconomic opportunities. ...

A Janus-Faced Institution of Ethnoracial Closure: A Sociological Specification of the Ghetto
  • Citing Chapter
  • April 2018

... Loic Wacquant (2020) has described the situation in urban areas in the United States as the state and welfare society having departed these areas, leaving residents on their own, due to recurring economic crises and neoliberal politics. In a Nordic context, however, the state and municipalities have played a dual role (Birk and Arp Fallov 2020;Frandsen and Hansen 2020;Larsen and Delica 2019). ...

Revisiting Territories of Relegation: Class, Ethnicity and State in the Making of Advanced Marginality
  • Citing Chapter
  • February 2020

... La utilización del concepto espacio social como categoría más general y la de campo social como un concepto acotado a un espacio más específico, con niveles de autonomía, reglas de ingreso y agentes sociales -que, a partir de sus habitus, desarrollan estrategias que conducen a la formación de "campos de fuerza" o de lucha social-ha sido destacada recientemente por Wacquant (2019). Este autor advierte la necesidad de no generalizar el uso de campo social, especialmente en el contexto de sociedades donde todavía no se han cristalizado las relaciones de producción capitalista y, por lo mismo, la transformación del capital social -supuestamente disponible en estas sociedades-en capital económico o cultural, o a la inversa, es un proceso que implica el análisis del peso y la equivalencia de los diversos tipos de capital disponibles, los derechos de entrada, el tiempo, costo y, además, la pertinencia u oportunidad, que depende de las estrategias desplegadas por los agentes sociales en un campo social determinado, asunto que conlleva una compleja investigación concreta más allá de las intenciones de este artículo. ...

Bourdieu’s Dyad: On the Primacy of Social Space and Symbolic Power
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 2020