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Death of a Traveller. Didier FassinЧитать онлайн книгу.

Death of a Traveller - Didier  Fassin


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equivalent authority but distinct legal status and territories of operation. The national police is a civilian force that operates within cities and on their outskirts. The national gendarmerie is a military force operating in rural areas and small towns. There are also municipal police forces under the authority of local mayors, whose role is more limited, complementing the two other forces. In this text the generic term “police” is used to refer to law-enforcement bodies. Angelo’s family, who live on a farm, have only ever had dealings with the gendarmerie, and the two who killed the young man were adjudants (non-commissioned officers), the first rank above beat officer. For the purposes of clarity, the translation uses the term officers for these two in order to distinguish them from the other gendarmes involved in the operation. All belong to an elite unit, the GIGN, or Groupe d’intervention de la gendarmerie nationale (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group), which was created to intervene in terrorist attacks, hostage situations and the fight against organized crime – in other words, circumstances very different from a simple arrest.

      The victims in the present case belong to the social group known as gens du voyage (travelling people). Determining the right way to name them is always a sensitive matter, for there are several words whose definitions and implications vary depending on context and speaker. The choice has been made here to respect the way the protagonists identify themselves. As far as Angelo and his family are concerned, most of them think of themselves simply as voyageurs (Travellers). The term may seem paradoxical given that they are settled, but it is noteworthy that, at the family property, a former farm, all prefer to sleep in caravans rather than in the buildings, testimony to a sort of nostalgia for a traveling way of life despite the fact that some of them have never known it. They sometimes use the term manouche when speaking about themselves, but never rom (Roma) or gitan (gypsy), since the former relates in their eyes to a specific community and the latter has pejorative connotations. While the translation of the book uses US English, the British English writing of the term “Traveller” has been preferred to differentiate it from the word “traveler,” which refers to a person who is traveling. The double “l” signifies the identity of a group.

      First, can I be said to take sides? This is a charge readily leveled against sociologists and anthropologists, who are often suspected of taking the part of the dominated. The observation is not entirely without foundation, and there is, moreover, no such thing as total impartiality. But here the opposite argument is called for. Once the magistrates have fully accepted one version of the events and rejected the other, the simple fact of giving equal weight to each, as I do here, and thus presenting them as both equally credible, tends to be seen as a failure of impartiality, whereas in fact it testifies to an effort to restore it. In this respect I show, in the sections focusing on the conditions of production of truth and lies in legal cases, that this case is far from an anomaly. It is not the exception, but the rule. It reveals not a dysfunctional justice system but its normal functioning, which needs to be analyzed as such if we are to understand the logics that prevail in the handling of such cases.

      Although the criminal investigation is long since over, the dismissal of the case was confirmed on appeal, and the petition to the Court of Cassation was judged inadmissible, it is probable that the case will be referred to the European Court of Human Rights. The way I have written it, presenting an honest reconstruction of the points of view of the main protagonists and a rigorous analysis of all the evidence in the investigation case file, and eventually putting forward an account of the events that differs from that of the justice system, takes this possibility into account.

      It appeared to me that the examining magistrate had not deciphered the problem at the root of this case, and I thought it might be of interest if I contributed here the information resulting from my own deciphering of it.

      Fernando Pessoa, Il Caso Vargas


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