Inside the French Hoods. Revisiting Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Relegated Districts

This papers aims to explore the constructed reality of the ‘rising of juvenile delinquency in housing projects’ social problem in France through the narratives told by the story of 3 chosen insiders, part of a larger population of teenagers studied in a longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork conducted for 6 years. This topic has been at the centre of the national political debates since the 2005 banlieue riots and has generated effective and consensual typifications categorizing the banlieue youth and its commitment with delinquent activities. Those typification associated to these teenagers - mainly separating the ‘good ones’ who are going to school and the ‘bad ones’ who are hanging around on street corners - does not only suffer from a very biased empirical material but also fails to explain the social, symbolic and economical significance of juvenile delinquent practices. The key separating outsiders from insiders on this particular topic is the way time is – or is not - taken into account. Outsiders do not consider delinquent activities within an historical and biographical process but as an illegal and immoral activity to be eradicated. On the opposite, listening to insiders allows us to understand that illegal activities have to be understood in relation to social trajectories and, hence, have to be considered as significant and inclusive moments rather than outcasted and outcasting states of being. Underlying behind this issue is a wider reflection about the way the French society has structured the relationships between its ethnic and social minorities and ‘the majority’. Focusing on 3 cases allow to contemplate  ‘dense’ ethnographical material which appears to be a potent sociological strategy to deconstruct engraved typifications. This paper is issued from my latest book : Des capuches et des hommes. Trajectoires de « jeunes de banlieue », Paris, Buchet-Chastel, 2013.