Court pedagogies and the construction of passive ordinary citizens in the French banlieue

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to conceptualizations of the pedagogical state by analyzing judicial spaces, beyond the courtroom, as key sites of citizenship formation. I explore pedagogical sessions organized by a judicial structure in France, whose geographical proximity to seemingly non-integrated populations in the banlieue allows it to teach them the laws, rules, and institutions that support citizenship. I argue that the pedagogical court seeks to construct governable ‘passive ordinary citizens’ whose main duty is to embody and practice the basic rules of socialization – respect for others and the rule of law – in their ordinary lives as a strategy of crime prevention. In that sense, courts are able to redefine not only the procedural but the substantive elements of citizenship as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogical state
• passive citizenship
• ordinary citizenship
• houses of justice and law
• France

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Joaquín Villanueva earned his Ph.D. in Geography at Syracuse University. His is Assistant Professor of Geography at Gustavus Adolphus College. His teaching and research focus on urban, political, and legal geography to explore the spatiality of courts in urban areas in France and the United States.

Notes

1 I use the terms courts and judiciary interchangeably. It denotes varying judicial institutions within, for example, the Department of Justice or the Minister of Justice, and not the spaces where it operates such as the courtroom.

2 These sessions are often organized between MJD personnel and school teachers. Students are not obligated to attend, yet since sessions only take between 1 and 2 h of the school-day, many end up attending because sessions are part of that day’s school activities. Sessions can take place in the classroom, where MJD personnel serve as guest speakers, or an official government space, such as the town hall. MJDs are not required to conduct these sessions, they are the result of proactive legal professionals within the MJD who genuinely believe in the ability of the judiciary to regulate social relations outside the courtroom (Interview, SADJAV, 2016).

3 This runs contrary to the republican tradition whereby citizens are all equal in the eyes of the law. Ethnic, religious, or racial identity markers are not officially recognized, which makes it difficult to statistically assess the distribution of minorities. However, any attempt to create political communities around an identity other than national are often accused of ‘communitarianism’, an implication of ethnic separatism that deeply threatens the universal values of republicanism (Hargreaves, 1995).

4 Delegates to the District Attorney are, often times, retired judges or police commissioners that serve as representatives to the district attorney in these local judicial structures.

5 In French, correction refers to the action of rectifying behavior through, primarily, corporeal punishment. The informant alluded to this definition in the following sentence.

6 See also http://lesaf.org/prendre-les-conseils-dun-avocat-nest-pas-un-crime/