Residents of the ghettos of all countries: unite! You have nothing to lose but your walls!

This article discusses Loic Wacquant's paper, "What is a ghetto? Building a sociological concept", with a particular focus on on Wacquant's concept of "hyperghetto" and its relation to the more traditional concept of ghetto. The author makes the argument that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, the extreme conditions of social exclusion that the inhabitants of today's hyperghettos are subjected to does not make them more socially fragile: historically we can se that these conditions propitiate social mobilization. Another emergent factor of recent years can be added to the scenario, showing considerable ability in the succesful mobilization of oppressed populations: Islam.

ghettos; hyperghettos; oppression; social mobilization