In the Presence of Enemies

A History of Domestic Threats in Modern Societies (XVIIIth-XXIth)

Patrick Farges et Alexandre Rios-Bordes

 

Lundi 9h-11h, Salle 145, bâtiment Olympe de Gouges, Université de Paris

This seminar offers to explore the comparative and transnational history of domestic threats in modern societies. At the crossroads of political, social, and cultural history, we wish to distance ourselves from the dominant ‘pathological’ understanding and take these anxieties seriously in a sociological perspective. We will wonder how the successive figures of internal enemies took roots, socially and politically, how they came in conflict with some of the referent distinctions of modern societies (between peace and war, domestic and foreign, politics and violence, citizens and adversaries, etc.), and what kind of transformations they engendered in terms of institutions, laws, practices, and conducts. What is a domestic enemy? In what contexts and through what processes did their successive figures emerged? What types of discourses framed the threats? Drawing from what kind of cultural references, repertoires, and experiences? How did these representations travelled and transformed? What kind of political and social reconfiguration did they produced? These are a few of the questions we will address and discuss through a series of historical cases chosen on both sides of the Atlantic, from the XVIIIth century to the present day.

1. Introduction (25/01)

“The Domestic Enemy in Modern Societies”

Alexandre Rios-Bordes (Université de Paris, ICT)

2. The Transnational Volunteer – Threats Across Borders (01/02)

“Royalists at the Border: A Transnational political threats in the 1830s”

Alexandre Dupont (Université de Strasbourg, Arche)

3. The Citizen – Rebellion against the Government (08/02)

 « A Disease of the Heart: Colonial Legacies, Rebellion, and Counter-Insurgency in Postwar Taiwan »

Victor Louzon (Sorbonne Université, Sirice)

4. The Minority – A Familiar Enemy (15/02)

“Jews as Domestic Enemies in Pre-War Nazi Germany”

Patrick Farges (Université de Paris, ICT)

5. The Criminal – The Enemy of the Community (01/03)

“Building Social and Moral Order amidst Violence: State, Armed Groups and Drug Trafficking in Michoacan, Mexico”

Romain Le Cour Grandmaison (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne / UCSD, USMEX)

6. The Refugee – Immigrants under Suspicion (08/03)

“’His Majesty’s Most Loyal Internees’: German-Jewish Refugees in British Internment 1940-1943”

Patrick Farges (Université de Paris, ICT)

7. The Opponent – Political Threats (15/03)

« The agents of political repression under the Brazilian Military Dictatorship: Extreme Right activists and specialists in Counter-insurgency »

Maud Chirio (Université Gustave Eiffel, LACP)

8. The Vigilant – In the Name of Popular Law and Order (22/03)

« The Primorsky Partisans: Cop Killers in the Russian Far East (2010) »

Gilles Favarel-Garrigues (CNRS, CERI/SciencesPo)

9. The Former Slave – Emancipation under Control (29/03)

« Abolition de l’esclavage et ‘engagisme’: des sociétés antillaises sous contrôle ? »

Céline Flory (CNRS, Mondes Américains – CIRESC)

10. The Rebel – Political Violence on the Outskirts (12/04)

« Political Violence and Day Labourers in Mediterranean Europe during the Interwar Period: Italian braccianti (1918-1922) and Spanish jornaleros (1931-1936) »

Romain Bonnet (European University Institute)

11. The Terrorist – Threats in the Age of Globalization (03/05)

« The Emergence and Circulation of the Enemy Doctrine in Criminal Law »

Cédric Moreau de Bellaing (ENS, LIER-FYT)