Marginality, ethnicity and penality: a response to Loïc Wacquant

Abstract

This article responds to Loïc Wacquant's elaboration of his overarching theoretical framework in his stimulating article ‘Marginality, Ethnicity and Penality in the Neo-liberal City: An Analytic Cartography’. I raise some issues that he might reflect on in his rejoinder to the comments on his essay. These include: (1) the need for greater specification and clarification of explanatory and conceptual variables in the elaboration of his theoretical framework, especially theoretical mechanisms and two key concepts, ‘precariat’ and ‘neo-liberal policy’; and (2) addressing a major study offering empirically based arguments that indirectly challenge assertions in his theoretical framework.

Keywords:

• theoretical mechanisms
• precarity
• precariat
• neo-liberalism
• habitus
• bureaucratic field
• inequality

Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to James Quane and Brandon Terry for their very helpful comments on previous drafts of this essay.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William Julius Wilson

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University.