Citation

Bartram R. Am. J. Sociol. 2021; 126(4): 759-794.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/713763

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Sociologists consistently show that people are more likely to perceive physical disorder in minority and low-income neighborhoods and that frontline workers either target or neglect issues in these places. A study of building inspectors in Chicago reveals an alternative explanation. Inspectors use assessments of dilapidated and dangerous material conditions--such as broken windows and abandoned buildings--to infer intentional disregard, a process I term malign neglect, on the part of resourced property owners. And they assess similar conditions as excusable and understandable, which I call defensible disrepair, in low-income communities of color. These findings challenge the consensus about the relationship between frontline workers and the reproduction of inequality and point to material objects as mediators of this relationship. Beyond the case at hand, this article theorizes the capacity of material objects to shape professional evaluations and disrupt correlations between sociodemographics, attitudes, and behavior.