Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:15:42.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Localising the Social: The Rediscovery of Urban Poverty in Western European ‘Affluent Societies’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2015

CHRISTIANE REINECKE
CHRISTIANE REINECKE*
Affiliation:
Institute for Cultural Studies, University of Leipzig, Beethovenstr. 15, 04107 Leipzig; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Concentrating on the production of knowledge of poverty and homelessness, this article discusses how particular spatial settings influenced the construction of social problems in the 1960s and 1970s. Exploring the practices of three kinds of knowledge producers – social scientists in academic circles, ‘practitioners cum activists’ engaging in advocacy research and experts in governmental committees – the analysis focuses on the early stages of a rediscovery of poverty in Western Europe as it was debated in international fora as well as in West Germany and France. It shows that the way in which poverty was represented as a new challenge to Western ‘affluent societies’ was in many respects an urban story, as the ongoing housing crisis and newly defined problem areas served as major points of reference for the revived interest in social deprivation. Moreover, urban actors – locally active NGOs and municipal authorities – played a preeminent role in launching debates on the apparent paradox of poverty in affluence. With their own work often grounded in particular urban problem zones, many contemporary observers tended to spatialise poverty. For them, poverty was bound to particular places; it was an exceptional sphere that helped generate a particular behaviour that made it difficult for ‘the poor’ to rise. While a growing part of the population had access to housing of a standard previously reserved to the middle class and had become able to choose where to live, life in peripheral shantytowns or dilapidated inner cities became the ultimate signifier of a social position beyond the established class structure.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 24 , Special Issue 4: Urban Societies in Europe , November 2015 , pp. 555 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Characteristic of the notion of a decidedly urban marginality in contemporary sociology is the influential analysis of North American ghettos and of French banlieues by Wacquant, Loïc, Urban Outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008)Google Scholar. On ‘new forms of poverty’ of an ‘urban character’ see also Fassin, Didier, ‘Exclusion, underclass, marginalidad: Figures contemporaines de la pauvreté urbaine en France, aux États-Units et en Amérique latine’, Revue française de sociologie, 37 (1996), 37–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a historical perspective on the concept of the urban underclass see Berking, Helmuth, ‘Local Frames and Global Images – Nation State and New Urban Underclass: Über die Globalisierung lokaler Wissensbestände’, in Löw, Martina, ed., Differenzierungen des Städtischen (Opladen: Budrich, 2002), 107–21Google Scholar.

2 On the emergence of the post-Fordist city see Häußermann, Hartmut et al., eds., An den Rändern der Städte. Armut und Ausgrenzung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004)Google Scholar. For a long-term perspective on the history of segregation see Nightingale, Carl H., Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 On the works of Henry Mayhew, Charles Booth and others see Lindner, Rolf, Walks on the Wild Side. Eine Geschichte der Stadtforschung (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2004), 43–95Google Scholar. On French social reform and the city see Horne, Janet R., A Social Laboratory for Modern France: The Musée Social and the Rise of the Welfare State (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

4 See for example Townsend, Peter, ‘Introduction’, in Townsend, Peter, ed., The Concept of Poverty: Working Papers on Methods of Investigation and Life-styles of the Poor in Different Countries (London: Heinemann, 1971)Google Scholar, ix–xi, ix.

5 On the concept of ‘poverty knowledge’ as a knowledge rooted in the idea ‘that scientific knowledge holds the key to solving social problems’ – and to solving ‘the poverty problem’ in particular – see O'Connor's, Alice inspiring analysis, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 4–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the production and circulation of knowledge in general see Sarasin, Philipp, ‘Was ist Wissensgeschichte?’, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, 36 (2011), 159–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Referring to approaches that have been formulated in Actor-Network-Theory, a growing number of researchers in the field of urban studies argue that ‘the city’ should not be understood as a given entity, underlining the various practices by which urban actors ‘assemble the city’. Farías, Ignacio and Bender, Thomas, eds., Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory changes Urban Studies (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

7 Latour, Bruno, Eine neue Soziologie für eine neue Gesellschaft. Einführung in die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2010).Google Scholar

8 This perspective is very much influenced by both the history of social knowledge and current debates on the production of space in history and sociology. See Joyce, Patrick, ‘What is the Social in Social History?’, Past and Present, 206 (2010), 213–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Topalov, Christian, eds., Les divisions de la ville (Paris: Ed. Unesco, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Menie Grégoire, ‘Le camp de Noisy-Le-Grand’, Esprit, Nov. 1964, 858–69.

10 On the history of ATD Quart Monde see Gueslin, André, Une histoire de la grande pauvreté dans la France du XXe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2004), 219Google Scholar–29. See also, from an activist's point of view: de la Gorce, Francine, L'espoir gronde. Noisy-le-Grand 1956–1962 (Paris: Editions Quart Monde, 1992)Google Scholar; de la Gorce, Francine, Un peuple se lève. 1963–1968 (Paris: Editions Quart Monde, 1995)Google Scholar.

11 Grégoire, ‘Camp’, 869.

12 The Bureau de Recherches Sociales as a co-foundation of ATD organised both meetings. Bureau de Recherches Sociales, ed., Familles inadaptées et relations humaines: Compte rendu du Colloque International sur les Familles Inadaptées, 12–14 May 1961 (Paris: Bureau de Recherches Sociales, 1961); Klanfer, Jules, L'exclusion sociale: Etude de la marginalité dans les sociétés occidentales (Paris: Bureau de Recherches Sociales, 1965)Google Scholar.

13 Henning Friis, ‘Preface’, in Klanfer, L'exclusion, (preface without page numbers).

14 Harrington, Michael, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (Baltimore: Penguin, 1962)Google Scholar. In 1999, Time Magazine even considered it one of the ten most important nonfiction books published in the twentieth century. On Harrington's work on the book see Isserman, Maurice, The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington (New York: PublicAffairs, 2000), 175–220Google Scholar.

15 See for example Townsend, ‘Introduction’, ix–xi, ix.

16 Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Affluent Society (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958), 254–59Google Scholar.

17 For the analysis of different forms of representing social change see Becker, Howard S., Telling About Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

18 Résumé des conclusions et recommandations générales, 2, Second Colloque sur les familles inadaptées sous le haut patronage de la Commission Française pour l'UNESCO, 10–12 Feb. 1964, Colloques et études années 1960 (no reference number), Centre International Joseph Wresinski, Baillet-en-France.

19 Groupe des Praticiens, 17, CIJW, ibid. In a similar vein see Groupe Logement et Urbanisation, 14, CIJW, ibid.

20 Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Affluent Society (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958), 254–59Google Scholar.

21 On Kinder in Not see, from an activist's perspective, Kelm, Wolfgang, ed., Faß ohne Boden? Beiträge zum Obdachlosenproblem (Wuppertal: Jugenddienst-Verlag, 1973)Google Scholar.

22 Klemek, Christopher, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal. Postwar Urbanism from New York to Berlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Diefendorf, Jeffry M., In the Wake of War. The Reconstruction of German Cities after World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Newsome, Brian W., French Urban Planning 1940–1968: The Construction and Deconstruction of an Authoritarian System (New York: Lang 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Tellier, Thibault, Le temps des HLM 1945–1975: La saga urbaine des trente glorieuses (Paris: Ed. Autrement, 2007)Google Scholar; Fourcaut, Annie, ‘Les premiers grands ensembles en région parisienne: Ne pas refaire la banlieue?’, French Historical Studies, 27 (2004), 195–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flagge, Ingeborg, ed., Geschichte des Wohnens, Vol. 5: 1945 bis heute. Aufbau, Neubau, Umbau (Stuttgart: DVA, 1999)Google Scholar.

24 Gastaut, Yvan, ‘Les bidonvilles, lieux d'exclusion et de marginalité en France durant les trente glorieuses’, Cahiers de la méditerranée, 69 (2004), 233–50Google Scholar.

25 Nasiali, Minayo, ‘Order the Disorderly Slum: “Standardizing” Quality of Life in Marseille Tenements and Bidonvilles’, Journal of Urban History, 38 (2012), 1021CrossRefGoogle Scholar–35; de Barros, Françoise, ‘Des “français musulmans d'Algérie” aux “immigrés”: L'importation de classifications coloniales dans les politiques du logement en France, 1950–1970’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 159 (2005), 26–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lyons, Amelia H., ‘Des bidonvilles aux HLM’, Hommes et Migration, 1264 (2006), 35–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, Muriel and David, Cédric, ‘Cités de Transit: The Urban Treatment of Poverty During Decolonisation’, Metropolitics, 28 Mar. 2012Google Scholar, available at www.metropolitiques.eu/Cites-de-transit-the-urban.html (last visited 3 Dec. 2014); Bernardot, Marc, Loger les immigrés: La Sonacotra 1956–2006 (Bellecombe: Ed. du Croquant, 2008)Google Scholar; Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard, ‘Des bidonvilles à la ville: Migrants des trente glorieuses et résorption en région parisienne’, Mémoire d'HDR, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2008.

26 On housing as a key aspect of ‘the immigrant question’ see: House, Jim and Thompson, Andrew, ‘Decolonisation, Space and Power: Immigration, welfare and housing in Britain and France, 1945–74’, in Thompson, Andrew S., ed., Writing Imperial Histories (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 240–67Google Scholar.

27 Maurice Josco, ‘89 bidonvilles autour de Paris’, France Soir, 22 Oct. 1965.

28 Gueslin, Grande pauvreté, 205–19; Wakeman, Rosemary, The Heroic City: Paris, 1945–1958 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar–45.

29 Dogneton, Pierre, Ambassadrice auprès des plus pauvres. Alwine de Vos van Steenwijk (Paris: Harmattan, 2001)Google Scholar, 14–35. On ATD see also Tricart, Jean-Paul, ‘Genèse d'un dispositif d'assistance: Les cités de transit’, Revue française de sociologie, 18 (1977), 601–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 611–4.

30 Cournut, Jean, Approche psycho-pathologique d'un camp d'asociaux (Paris: Thèse pour le Doctorat en Médecine, 1963)Google Scholar; Labbens, Jean, La condition sous-prolétarienne: L'héritage du passé (Paris: Bureau de Recherches Sociales, 1965)Google Scholar; ibid. Le quart-monde: La pauvreté dans la société industrielle: Etude sur le sous-prolétariat français dans la région parisienne (Paris: Bureau de Recherches Sociales, 1969).

31 Miller, S. M., ‘The Fourth World Movement: Personal Lessons’, Social Policy, 7, 1 (2013)Google Scholar, available at www.socialpolicy.org/about-us/660-the-fourth-world-movement-personal-lessons- (last visited 4 May 2014).

32 They met at an international seminar on low-income groups organised by the OECD in 1965, at a panel on poverty at the World Congress of Sociology in 1966, at an international seminar in Essex in 1967 and at an international conference on urban deprivation organised by the British government in 1973.

33 For ATD's correpondence with these researchers see: Comité International de Recherche sur la Pauvreté, 1962–1970, BRS: Colloques et études, années 1960, CIJW; BRS: Correspondance de l'Institut, 1969–1977, CIJW.

34 de Vos to Klineberg, 28 July 1966, Comité International de Recherche sur la Pauvreté, 1962–1970, BRS: Colloques et études années 1960, CIJW.

35 de Vos to Aubert, 29 July 1966, ibid. See also her letter to Townsend, 4 Sept. 1966, ibid.

36 Peter Townsend, ‘Measures and Explanations of Poverty in High Income and Low Income Countries’, in Townsend, Concept, 1–45, 44.

37 On the influence of a ‘locationless logic’ on (quantitative) sociological research see Savage, Mike, Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940. The Politics of Method (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Townsend, ‘Measures’, 42.

39 Peter Townsend, Manuscript, 10, Second Colloque, Colloques et études années 1960, CIJW.

40 Commissariat Général du Plan, Intergroupe Handicapés-Inadaptés, Groupe des Handicapés Sociaux, Le problème de l'habitat des inadaptés sociaux. Note établie par M. Trintignac (Paris: Oct. 1970), 1, 19771141/1, Centre des archives contemporaines, Paris; Commissariat Général du Plan, Commission de l'habitation, Rapport du Groupe ‘Mal Logés’ (Paris: Dec. 1970), Liste des Rapporteurs, Habitat I, Rapport Colloques, 1970–1981, CIJW.

41 Townsend, Concept; OCDE, Les groups; Wresinski, Joseph, ‘Lettres Ouvertes’, Habitat et vie social, 2 (1974), 63–4Google Scholar.

42 Memorandum by P. van Bijserveld to E. James and L. Crijns, 9 Aug. 1974, BAC 18/1987, Vol. II, 226, Historical Archives of the European Commission, Brussels.

43 Action Against Poverty, Criteria for the Selection of Pilot Schemes, 1974, Directorate General for Social Affairs, BAC 18/1987, Vol. I., 162–5, HAEC.

44 Ibid.

45 Letters to the Directorate General for Social Affairs, BAC 18/1987, Vol. 1, 14, 19, 27, 49, 56, 99, HAEC.

46 Leisering, Lutz, ‘Zwischen Verdrängung und Dramatisierung. Zur Wissenssoziologie der Armut in der bundesrepublikanischen Gesellschaft’, Soziale Welt, 44 (1993), 486Google Scholar–511; Boldorf, Marcel, ‘Die “Neue Soziale Frage” und die “Neue Armut” in den siebziger Jahren’, in Jarausch, Konrad H., ed., Das Ende der Zuversicht? Die siebziger Jahre als Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar–56; Süß, Winfried, ‘Armut im Wohlfahrtsstaat’, in Hockerts, Hans-Günter and Süß, Winfried, eds., Soziale Ungleichheit im Sozialstaat: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Großbritannien im Vergleich (München: Oldenbourg, 2011), 19–41Google Scholar. In a similar vein, see Paugam's periodisation of a ‘marginalised poverty’: Paugam, Serge, Die elementaren Formen der Armut (Hamburg: Hamburger Ed., 2008)Google Scholar. However, in his analysis of changing images of poverty in West and East Germany, Christoph Lorke follows a different (and more convincing) periodisation: Lorke, Christoph, Armut im geteilten Deutschland. Die Wahrnehmung sozialer Randlagen in der Bundesrepublik und der DDR (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2015)Google Scholar.

47 Höhmann, Peter, Zuweisungsprozesse bei Obdachlosen: Zur Produktion sozialer Probleme durch Instanzen sozialer Kontrolle (Regensburg: unpublished dissertation, 1973), 10Google Scholar.

48 Hans-Joachim Noack, Begraben in Baracken, Zeit, 3 Mar. 1972, 72.

49 See for example: Hanspeter Neumann, ‘Abgestempelt. Elendsviertel am Rande Mannheims’, Zeit, 8 Mar. 1968; Ulla Hofmann, ‘Fünf Menschen in einem Zimmer ohne Wasseranschluss’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 Feb. 1970; ‘Spiegel-Report über sozial benachteiligte Gruppen in der Bundesrepublik’, Spiegel, 28. Sept. 1970; Siegfried Diehl, ‘Schwere Wege aus dem Getto’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 Apr.1972; Petra Michaely, ‘Warum sammelt Frau Schumann Tabletten?’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 Sept. 1973.

50 Hans Martini, ‘Vorbemerkung’, in Forschungsgruppe Gemeindesoziologie, Obdachlosigkeit. Gemeindesoziologische Untersuchung. Teil I (Mannheim: Informationen aus dem Sozialwesen, 1971), I–III, III; Krebs, Dagmar, Anwendung der Stress-Theorie in einer Felduntersuchung an Obdachlosen (Mannheim: unpublished dissertation, 1971)Google Scholar.

51 See for example Haag, Fritz, Wohnungslose Familien in Notunterkünften. Soziales Bezugsfeld und Verhaltensstrategien (München: Juventa, 1971)Google Scholar; Adams, Ursula, Nachhut der Gesellschaft. Untersuchung einer Obdachlosensiedlung in einer westdeutschen Großstadt (Freiburg i.Br.: Lambertus, 1971)Google Scholar; Direktorium Investitionsplanungs- und Olympiaamt, Wohnungen für Obdachlose (München: Beiträge zur Stadtentwicklung, 1967).

52 Städtetag, Deutscher, ed., Hinweise zur Obdachlosenhilfe (Köln: Deutscher Städtetag, 1968)Google Scholar; Christiansen, Ursula, Obdachlos weil arm. Gesellschaftliche Reaktionen auf die Armut (Gießen: Ed. 2000, 1973)Google Scholar, 29; Schulz, Klaus, Die Rechtsstellung des Obdachlosen nach Bundes- und allgemeinem Sicherheitsrecht (Würzburg: Diss, 1970)Google Scholar, 12.

53 Höhmann, Zuweisungsprozesse, 29; Haag, Wohnungslose, 16; Städtetag, Hinweise, 5.

54 See for example Haag, Wohnungslose, 31; Krebs, Anwendung.

55 Haag, Wohnungslose, 16–7; Schulz, Rechtsstellung, 11; Krebs, Anwendung, 8, 12–3.

56 Lidwina Kühne-Büning et. al., ‘Zwischen Angebot und Nachfrage, zwischen Regulierung und Konjunktur’, in Flagge, Geschichte des Wohnens, 153–232, 158–62.

57 Haag, Wohnungslose, 16–7; Schulz, Rechtsstellung, 11; Krebs, Anwendung, 8, 12–3.

58 Höhmann, Zuweisungsprozesse; Haag, Wohnungslose; Krebs, Anwendung.

59 Krebs, Anwendung, 5.

60 Krebs, Anwendung, 129.

61 Krebs, Anwendung, 5.

62 ‘Spiegel-Report’.

63 For a long-term perspective on the idea of a ‘society of equals’ see Rosanvallon, Pierre, La société des égaux (Paris: Seuil, 2011)Google Scholar.

64 Sachs, Wolfgang, ‘Introduction’, in Sachs, Wolfgang, ed., The Development Dictionary. A Guide to Knowledge as Power, 12th edn (London: Zed Books, 2007)Google Scholar, 1–5, 2.

65 While the ‘moral economy’ does go back to E.P. Thomson, sociologists and historians increasingly use the term in a much broader sense in order to point to the normative assumptions and value systems influencing social practices in the context of the welfare state or other fields. Mau, Steffen, ‘Welfare Regimes and the Norms of Social Exchange’, Current Sociology, 52 (2004), 53–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Nasiali, ‘Order’, 1022, House and Thompson, ‘Decolonisation’.

67 On the fears concerning ethnic ghettos in West German municipalities see Reinecke, Christiane, ‘Auf dem Weg zu einer neuen sozialen Frage? Ghettoisierung und Segregation als Teil einer Krisensemantik der 1970er Jahre’, Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte (2012), 110–31Google Scholar.

68 Hetherington, Kevin, The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Ordering (London: Routledge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, viii.