Uncanny Citizenship: State Power, Stigmatization, and Youth Resistance Culture in the French Banlieues by Hervé Tchumkam (review)

In his book Uncanny Citizenship: State Power, Stigmatization, and Youth Resistance Culture in the French Banlieues, Hervé Tchumkam brilliantly examines what has come to be known as littérature de banlieue, or writing born from the 2005 French riots that began on the outskirts of Paris and then later spread throughout the nation. The book begins by informing the reader that such instances of social unrest attest to "the strained relations between two particular groups—French citizens born to African immigrant parents and the sovereign power—as well as the treatment of 'difference' in contemporary France" (1). Indeed, debates concerning "Frenchness" have preoccupied many in the French political sphere, thus making Tchumkam's work a timely addition. Via literary, political, and sociological analysis, Uncanny Citizenship shows that "the concern of banlieue inhabitants is no longer one of integration, or of being accepted into French territory, but of being recognized as a community that refuses classification and insists upon claiming their right to exist as French citizens" (20).

Tchumkam's reading of this littérature de banlieue breaks with previous analyses that examined such writing in relation to Africa. Instead, he argues that the country is "faced with an unidentifiable enemy and thus must deal with that enemy using different means from those France employed when dealing with immigrants arriving from Africa" (2). This distinction comes to inform much of the book and is a welcome contribution. Equally important is his hypothesis that "the 2005 urban riots, as a major mode of resistance, have led to the rise of a new community, one that eludes classification by the political authorities and that through that very gesture affirms itself as the ultimate manifesto by France's visible minorities for their right to exist in France" (27).

The book's second chapter, "Criminal Identities," considers the relationship between criminality and identity construction with the help of the concept of the "banlieue parade," a term that is "understood both as organized spectacle and act of resistance" (31–32). For Tchumkam, unlike the colonial parade that is concerned with "the submission of the subject to colonial order" (31), the "banlieue parade" sees the characters in the novels studied as reworking their identities through participation in criminal activities. Tchumkam views these transgressions as a plea, noting that the characters' implications in violence function as masks they wear to "turn the machinery of the State of exception into derision" (38).

Chapter three, "Recasting Juvenile Delinquency," tackles the figure of the thug. The thug, Tchumkam writes, "as an element of stigmatization crisscrosses public discourse in France, and the sovereign powers under Nicolas Sarkozy turned it into a powerful argument for governmentality, or a campaign to legitimize political action" (77). Tchumkam sees this political action as a way of disciplining the thugs, with the ultimate goal being "making them more sociable and indeed more acceptable in a society that defends liberty, equality, and fraternity" (77). He notes, however, these notions as they are repeated in France are quite vague and thus allow for a deepening of what he calls "a cleavage in society" (77).

In the fourth chapter, "The Islamist Threat," Tchumkam notes "a growing increase in the feeling of Islamophobia, a sentiment that has grown not only due to the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, but also because of the violent riots of Autumn 2005 that shook France" (95). It is against this backdrop that Karim Amellal's Cités à comparaître and Abd Al Malik's La guerre des banlieues n'aura pas lieu are analyzed. Tchumkam describes how Islam is often perceived as a threat to French society. In Abd Al Malik's case, Tchumkam concludes that his book is "an indictment calling for the recognition of diversity of French Muslims as citizens, and no longer as indigenes intent on destroying 'civilization,' for France and Islam can indeed live together in peace and harmony...