Violence in France and Australia

Despite their very different histories, Australia and France share the typical postcolonial experience of unresolved conflicts. The persistent residues of colonial violence manifest in contemporary outbreaks of violence in Indigenous Australian communities and in communities in France with a large number of immigrants and their descendants from former colonies. In both countries structural limitations and policy failures of the welfare state have become sources of discontent and suffering, leading to interactions between marginalised groups and the state that are punctuated by instances of violent contestation.

Violence in France and Australia: Disorder in the Postcolonial Welfare State examines the racial and ethnic dimensions of forms of marginality and the relationships between the welfare state and the postcolonial background to contemporary violence. The essays draw upon field research and innovations in the social theory extending the collection's comparative format and providing novel insights into the configurations of the postcolonial and the welfare state.

Craig Browne is a senior lecturer in sociology and social policy at the University of Sydney.

Justine McGill is a provisional psychologist at the University of Melbourne Psychology Clinc.

1. Violence and the postcolonial welfare state in France and Australia
   Craig Browne and Justine McGill
2. Framing violence: an ethnographic perspective on rioting
   Gillian Cowlishaw
3. In the Northern Territory intervention: what is saved or rescued and at what cost?
   Irene Watson
4. The state’s intervention in Indigenous affairs in the Northern Territory: governing the Indigenous population through violence, abuse and neglect
   Deirdre Howard-Wagner
5. The powerlessness of the powerful: riots as counter-violence
   Justine McGill
6. Colonial violence and postcolonial France
   Robert Aldrich
7. Violence, identity and the postcolonial French state
   Elizabeth Rechniewski
8. Violence and disrespect in the French revolt of November 2005
   Emmanuel Renault
9. The violence of radicalisation: the 2005 riots as event
   Didier Fassin
10. Enacting half-positions: creative disrespect in the 2005 French riots
    Craig Browne and Phillip Mar

Note on contributors
Index