During the last one hundred years, “social
isolation” has been one of the key concepts and core problems
in American sociology, but an intellectual history of its curious
life reveals strong conflict over its status. There are three
specific purposes for this effort at conceptual clarification.
First, to show how distinct generations of urban scholars have
developed, deployed, and debunked the idea of social isolation
and to chart its return to prominence in recent years. Second,
to consider the methodological and theoretical sources of the
term’s longevity, and to raise questions about the status
of an urban poverty paradigm based on the isolation thesis. Third,
to consider the social and sociological consequences of research
focusing on the social isolation problem. This paper documents
how conventional uses of the category have muddled important social
scientific debates about inequality and the city, and calls for
a new vocabulary for the study of urban social processes.
Eric Klinenberg, Department
of Sociology and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
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