Didier Fassin Libros

An edited collection that explores all aspects of the state and its institutions.

In the face of the world's disorders, moral concerns have provided a powerful ground for developing international and local policies. This title draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war.

Adapted from the landmark essay Enforcing Order, this striking graphic novel offers an accessible inside look at policing and how it leads to discrimination and violence. What we know about the forces of law and order often comes from tragic episodes that make the headlines, or from sensationalized versions for film and television. These gripping accounts obscure two crucial aspects of police work: the tedium of everyday patrols under constant pressure to meet quotas, and the banality of racial discrimination and ordinary violence. Around the time of the 2005 French riots, anthropologist and sociologist Didier Fassin spent fifteen months observing up close the daily life of an anticrime squad in one of the largest precincts in the Paris region. His unprecedented study, which sparked intense discussion about policing in the largely working-class, immigrant suburbs, remains acutely relevant in light of all-too-common incidents of police brutality against minorities. This new, powerfully illustrated adaptation clearly presents the insights of Fassin’s investigation, and draws connections to the challenges we face today in the United States as in France.

In The Will to Punish, Didier Fassin interrogates the philosophical presuppositions of modern punishment. Through his own fieldwork, history and anthropology, Fassin breaks the conceptual links between crime and punishment, showing that states punish without crime, and that the extent of punishment's focus on marginalized communities means that it lies beyond any rational justification.

Most incidents of urban unrest in recent decades - including the riots in France, Britain and other Western countries - have followed lethal interactions between the youth and the police. Usually these take place in disadvantaged neighborhoods composed of working-class families of immigrant origin or belonging to ethnic minorities.

How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived? Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other the biological or the biographical.

Exploring the anthropology of trauma, this book delves into the evolution of values and value systems in a globalized context. It presents a comprehensive analysis that enhances understanding of trauma's impact on societies. The author’s insights contribute significantly to the discourse on trauma, making it a standout work that resonates deeply with contemporary issues.

It is a simple story. A 37-year-old man belonging to the Traveller community is shot dead by a special unit of the French police on the family farm where he was hiding since he failed to return to prison after temporary release. The officers claim self-defence. The relatives, present at the scene, contest that claim. A case is opened, and it concludes with a dismissal that is upheld on appeal. Dismayed by these decisions, the family continues the struggle for truth and justice. Giving each account of the event the same credit, Didier Fassin conducts a counter-investigation, based on the re-examination of all the available details and on the interviews of its protagonists. A critical reflection on the work of police forces, the functioning of the justice system, and the conditions that make such tragedies possible and seldom punished, Death of a Traveller is also an attempt to restore to these marginalized communities what they are usually denied: respectability.

The prison is a recent invention, hardly more than two centuries old, yet it has become the universal system of punishment.

The Covid pandemic of early 2020 transformed public health from a specialized field into a crucial aspect of everyday life, influencing government policies and societal norms. The book explores the profound social and economic impacts of this shift, highlighting how health considerations became central to decision-making processes worldwide. Through this lens, it examines the evolving role of public health in shaping global responses to crises.