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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-defense. 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.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
A Simple Story. Preface to the English Edition
Terminological Note
Preamble
Prologue
I. The Father
II. The First Officer
III. The Mother
IV. The Second Officer
V. The Doctor
VI. The Sister
VII. The Prosecutor
VIII. The Journalist
IX. Dignity
X. Campaign
XI. Mourning
XII. Biography
XIII. Investigation
XIV. Dismissal
XV. Truth
XVI. Lies
XVII. Reconstruction
XVIII. That Day
Epilogue
About the author
Didier Fassin is the James D. Wolfensohn Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a Director of Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.
Summary
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-defense. 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.
Report
"Fassin, a sociologist and anthropologist, aims to supplement the approaches of activists and of the justice system in confronting police violence, and scrutinizes the evidence with an emphasis on its socioeconomic context. To do otherwise, he argues, impedes both truth and human dignity."
The New Yorker
"In seeking to do justice to yet another young life, another racialized suspect, snuffed out in the name of public order, Fassin provides a stunning indictment of a new moral economy: a culture of institutional duplicity that allows police to get away with murder."
Jean Comaroff, Harvard University
"How can an account of a controversial killing do justice to it sociologically and according to the laws of the land, and at the same time politically and humanely? This is the multifaceted conundrum addressed by this beautifully written and meticulously crafted book. A riveting must-read for all those concerned by the broader meaning of death at the hands of the police, in France and in other countries."
Dame Caroline Humphrey, University of Cambridge
