Postcolonial France

Paul Silverstein

Description

France is a bellwether for the postcolonial anxieties and populist politics emerging across the world today. This book explores the dynamics and dilemmas of the present moment of crisis and hope in France, through an exploration of recent moral panics.



Taking stock of the tensions as they have emerged over the last quarter of a century, Paul Silverstein looks at urban racial violence, female Islamic dress and male public prayer, anti-system gangster rap, and sporting performances in and around which debates over France's multicultural future have arisen. It traces these conflicts to the unresolved tensions of an imperial project, the present-day effects of which are still felt by many.



Despite the barriers, which include neo-nationalist racism and Islamophobia, French citizens of various backgrounds have found ways to build flourishing lives. Silverstein shows how they have responded to urban marginalisation, police violence and institutional discrimination in remarkably creative ways.
Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Glossary

Introduction: Whither Postcolonial France?

1. Mobile Subjects

2. How Does It Feel to Be the Crisis?

3. The Muslim and the Jew

4. Dangerous Signs: Charlie Hebdo and Dieudonne

5. Anxious Football

6. Tracing Places: Parkour and Urban Space

7. Hip-Hop Nations

Conclusion: Postcolonial Love

Notes

References

Index

Sujets

• Minority Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Political Advocacy
• Political Process
• Hip-Hop
• Social Science
• Modern
• Holocaust
• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Fútbol
• Gueto
• Marruecos
• Advocacy group
• Jews
• Precarity
• 21st century
• Postcolonialism
• The Holocaust
• Racialization
• Hip hop
• Modern history
• Cosmopolitanism
• Decolonization
• Islamophobia
• National Front
• Cultural studies
• Multiculturalism
• Secularism
• Republicanism
• Nationalism
• Imperialism
• Integration
• European Union
• Colonialism
• Citizenship
• Activism
• Antisemitism
• Anthropology
• Algeria
• Banlieue
• Morocco
• Impérialisme (jeu vidéo)
• Football
• Algérie
• Union européenne
• Identity
• Islam
• Front national britannique
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Migration
• Discrimination
• Ghetto
• Le Pen
• Décolonisation
• Charlie Hebdo
• Holocauste
• Immigration
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786802972
• Langue: English

Extrait

Postcolonial France
Postcolonial France
Race, Islam, and the Future of the Republic
Paul A. Silverstein
First published 2018 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright Paul A. Silverstein 2018
The right of Paul Silverstein to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3775 3 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3774 6 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0296 5 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0298 9 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0297 2 EPUB eBook
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
Introduction: Whither Postcolonial France?
1 Mobile Subjects
2 How Does It Feel to Be the Crisis?
3 The Muslim and the Jew
4 Dangerous Signs: Charlie Hebdo and Dieudonn
5 Anxious Football
6 Tracing Places: Parkour and Urban Space
7 Hip-Hop Nations
Conclusion: Postcolonial Love
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
I never intended to write another book about France, but events conspired otherwise. The seed was inadvertently sown by my mother-in-law, Tatiana Nikolaevna, who innocently asked me whether a short blog piece I was writing was my book. The seed germinated over the next several years with the encouragement of many colleagues across several continents, and ultimately thanks to the unending enthusiasm, editorial wisdom, and especially patience of David Shulman. Gratitude as well to Philip Thomas for his meticulous copyediting, and to the entire team at Pluto Press, the perfect home for the kind of critical engagement to which I aspire.
I have tried out a number of the ideas and interpretations included in this book in departmental seminars, research colloquia, workshops, and conferences at universities across the globe over the past decade, including in Amsterdam, Ashdod, Berkeley, Bochum, Brussels, Chicago, Harvard, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Leuven, Lille, Maastricht, Nijmegen, NYU, Pittsburgh, Prague, UCLA, and Utrecht, as well as here in Oregon. Colleagues and comrades across these institutions and beyond have at various points provided timely feedback, commentary, and inspiration. Indeed, in many ways, this book is very much the product of ongoing collaboration and collective reflection. I am particularly thankful for all the years of insight, encouragement, suggestions, and critique of Joel Beinin, Naor Ben-Yehoyada, Sarah Bracke, John Bunzl, Matti Bunzl, Azar Dakwar, Andrew Diamond, Laurent Dubois, Olivier Esteves, Nadia Fadil, Mayanthi Fernando, Steve Foster, Michael Frishkopf, Abdellali Hajjat, Abdellah Hammoudi, Michael Herzfeld, Elizabeth Hurd, Yolande Janssen, Rick Jobs, Jeanette Jouili, Ethan Katz, Julie Kleinman, Brian Klug, Anouk de Koning, Brian Larkin, Michel Laronde, Andr Levy, Fran oise Lionnet, Ussama Makdisi, David McMurray, Nasar Meer, Annelies Moors, Susan Ossman, Esra zy rek, Todd Shepard, Daniel Sherman, Ella Shohat, Andrew Shryock, Susan Slyomovics, Barbora Spalov , Federico Spinetti, Benjamin Stora, Tyler Stovall, Thijl Sunier, Ted Swedenburg, Susan Terrio, Miriam Ticktin, Anya Topolski, Kathrine van den Bogert, Lauren Wagner, Gary Wilder, and all my comrades within the MERIP collective. An especial shout out to Hisham Aidi and Chantal Tetreault for their eleventh-hour sanity check, as well as to the three anonymous reviewers who pushed me to clarify my intervention. My long-term study of France was augmented by a generous Carnegie Scholar Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The chance to deepen the transatlantic conversation was enabled by a subsequent opportunity from the Fulbright Scholar program to spend a research sabbatical at the Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities Research Center (IMMRC) at the University of Leuven; I am grateful to Erica Lutes, Sofie De Rijck, and all my Leuven anthropology colleagues for welcoming an American stray.
Closer to home, the support I have received over the years from Reed College has always gone beyond all reasonable expectations. My colleagues and especially my students have provided a truly inspiring intellectual community. Special thanks to Malina Cheeneebash for help preparing the book s index. But of course the real source of unending support has been my dear friends and family. Anya and Nadya brought joy on a daily basis and patiently put up with my prolonged absences and derelictions of household duty. They may not have written the words which follow, but there would have been no words without them. I love you very much.
Chapter 3 draws on The Fantasy and Violence of Religious Imagination: Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism in France and North Africa, in Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend , ed. Andrew Shryock (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010, pp.141-71). I am grateful to Indiana University Press for permission to draw on this earlier work.
An earlier version of Chapter 7 appeared as Sounds of Love and Hate: Sufi Rap, Ghetto Patrimony, and the Concrete Politics of the French Urban Periphery, in Music, Sound, and Architecture in Islam , ed. Michael Frishkopf and Federico Spinetti (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018, pp. 255-79). I am grateful to the University of Texas Press for permission to reprint the materials.
Abbreviations
AICP
Association of Islamic Charitable Projects
AQAP
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
BAC
Anti-Criminal Brigade
CCIF
Collective against Islamophobia in France
CFCM
French Councils on the Muslim Faith
CNHI
National Center for the History of Immigration
CRAN
Representative Council of Black Associations
CRIF
Representative Council of Jewish Institutions
FFF
French Football Federation
FIFA
F d ration Internationale de Football Association
FLN
National Liberation Front (Algeria)
GIA
Algerian Armed Islamic Group
ICI
Islamic Cultures Institute
INSEP
National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance
LICRA
International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism
MIB
Mouvement Immigration Banlieue
MRAP
Movement Against Racism, Anti-Semitism, and for Peace
NPNS
Ni Putes Ni Soumises
PIR
Party of the Indig nes of the Republic
SONACOTRA
National Corporation for the Construction of Housing for Algerian Workers
UEJF
Union of Jewish Students of France
UOIF
Union of Islamic Organizations of France
ZUP
priority urbanization zone
Glossary
amicales (French) Organizations established by North African states in the wake of independence to provide social and cultural services for its overseas population.
banlieue (French) A suburb, often associated in the French media with those areas inhabited by those from a working-class or postcolonial immigrant background, but in fact socially and ethnically diverse.
beauf (French) A slang term, short for beau-fr re (brother-in-law), carrying the connotation of a good ol boy or cracker.
b k (Antillean Creole) Descendents of the former plantation class of white slave owners, who still constitute a socioeconomic elite on the islands.
b ton (French) Literally concrete, but metonymically used in reference to French public housing projects.
Beur (French) A term for Franco-Maghrebis, derived from Arab ( arabe ); in popular usage in the 1980s but since disavowed.
bidonville (French) A shantytown, often built on the outskirts of major cities, particularly in Parisian suburbs like Nanterre and Noisy-le-Grand, which housed Algerian immigrants and their families prior to their demolition in the 1970s.
caillera (French) A French back-slang ( verlan ) term for scum ( racaille ), deployed in street and hip-hop argot to denote a gangsta.
cit /t ci (French) Terms for the public housing projects begun in the 1950s and built on the outskirts of French cities, often in close proximity to industrial zones, to rehouse the French working class, including immigrant laborers and their families.
communautarisme (French) Sectarianism or communalism; a term deployed in media and political discourse to designate the supposed tendency of Muslim French and others from a postcolonial immigrant background to congregate in enclaves with their own internal moral and cultural values.
contrôle au faci s (French) An identity check or police stop deployed as a security measure, particularly in the context of antiterrorism plans, disproportionately targeting non-white men.
convivencia (Spanish) An imagined period of peaceful coexistence during the Islamic period of Al-Andalus, in which Christian and Jewish populations lived among and alongside empowered Muslim inhabitants.
da wa (Arabic) Literally invitation, but referring to Islamic proselytizing practiced by a number of missionary groups.
d rive (French) Literally drifting or being adrift, referring to an ambulant practice developed by the Situationists in the 1950s to psychogeographically remap the city along lines no longer predetermined by capitalism and the state.
dhimmi (Arabic) A shortening of ahl al-dhimma , a protected class of non-Muslims living in Islamic states who had delimited rights and were governed by their own civic law in exchange for an annual tribute ( jizya ); the term has entered the French language in reference to a particular status ( dhimmitude ) which is feared an encroaching Muslim majority would impose on Christians and Jews if given power.
droit à la diff rence (French) Right to difference, upheld by SOSRacisme and other antiracist groups during the 1980s as a political message o