Downing, Joseph
(2014)
Between policy, recognition and rioting: analyzing the role of urban governance, historical
commemoration and public culture in defining inclusion in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
While exhibiting similar socio-economic disadvantage, concentrated in post-migration communities, as the 274 towns and cities that rioted in the 2005 disturbances in France, Marseille did not riot. As a possible explanation for this behavior this thesis argues that the city has an inclusive urban identity not present in the same form in the other French cities that rioted. It is hypothesized that it is the application of a ‘policy narrative’ (Boswell et al 2011) offering ‘recognition’ (Taylor 1994) to post-migration communities that has given the identity of the city this inclusivity. On the contrary, this thesis takes the two cases of Paris and Lyon as contrasting examples of cities that rioted in 2005 to enable a comparative analysis to take place against two cities adhering to the national French policy context of assimilation that does not offer such recognition to post-migration communities. In light of the similar socio-economic problems across the three cases, and drawing on the literature concerned with the policy applications of multiculturalism, this thesis examines the policy narratives applied across three interrelated areas of municipal policy – governance, public culture and the commemoration of history. This analysis, however, demonstrates some unexpected trends. In this instance, both Paris and Lyon, in varying ways have begun in the past decade to apply a policy narrative of recognition towards post-migration communities in variance to the national policy context of assimilation. In both cases, however, the application of policies of recognition is both very recent, and very much contested by those interest groups that seek to maintain the status quo of assimilation. This analysis has found that Marseille is much more advanced in both the duration and extent of the policies of recognition deployed by the city across the three areas of governance, public culture and historical commemoration. As such, over the past two decades the city has worked to offer representation and recognition to post-migration communities that could be argued to play an important roll in creating an inclusive urban identity at the local level that militates against civil unrest.
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