“If You Can’t Hear Me, I Will Show You”: Insurgent Claims to Public Space in a Marginalized Social Housing Neighborhood in France

Abstract

This article is concerned with public space as a place of contestation, of confrontation, and insurgency. It situates these everyday forms of confrontation in France’s postcolonial history, arguing that the occupation of communal spaces by groups of youths should be understood as part of a larger conflict about the place that those called “of immigrant origin” can occupy in French society. The article seeks to explain why youths involved in the unsanctioned use of space rely on means that are widely interpreted as uncivil or violent in order to make themselves visible and to be heard. It argues that these claims to space may be interpreted as subaltern claims to citizenship. As second-class citizens, they lack “a place” in society, as subalterns their discourse is not heard, so they seek alternative ways to exist. The neighborhood proves to be an eminent place to be somewhere and someone.