Open AccessWas ist ein Ghetto? Konstruktion eines soziologischen Konzepts
Author(s) -
Loïc Wacquant
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
prokla
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2700-0311
pISSN - 0342-8176
DOI - 10.32387/prokla.v34i134.645
Subject(s) - janus , sociology , term (time) , space (punctuation) , social psychology , political science , epistemology , psychology , computer science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language , operating system
Altbough the social sciences have made extensive use of the term "ghetto" as a descriptive term, they have failed to forge a robust analytical concept of the same. This article constructs a relational concept of the ghetto as a Janus-faced instrument of ethnoracial closure and control. A ghetto is an social-organizational device composed of four elements (stigma, constraint, spatial confinement, and institutional encasement) that employs space to reconcile the two antinomic purposes of economic exploitation and social ostracization.