It seems to be a classical assumption that memory is not as much about the past than about our way to recall and use it in the present (Halbwachs, 1925). Numerous contributions study this relation from the present to the past. What some authors call an "ethics of never again" (Baer & Sznaider, 2016) reinforces this theoretical framework, extending the past experience to a horizon never to happen again. This specific convergence of times built in the aftermath of the Second World War (Wieviorka, 1998) anchors the present actions of remembrance directly in the "truth of the victims". Counting on specific institutions as truth commissions, it constitutes the core principle of numerous memory policies in the world. However, memory is not only a matter of explicit "memory policies", and the purpose of the present contribution will be to show how memory issues can have an impact in contexts that would not, in principle, be understood as built on a memory-basis. Risk prevention policies will be taken as an example: often built and set after traumatic events (pandemic, industrial…)(Beck, 1986), their main function is to organise the present structure of our society in order to prevent such events to happen, that is, to repeat.
Terrorist attacks I will argue, are especially interesting to analyse in such a framework because they have been tackled both from a memory perspective (Truc, 2019) and from a risk prevention policy point of view (Puaud, 2018 ; Seze, 2019). The aim of this presentation will be to explore the links that exist between both perspectives and how they can help understanding how terrorism "affects us" (Truc, 2016) and makes us act.
The presentation lies on a broader study on frontline practitioners, administrations and politics. It focuses on How they use the terms "radicalisation" and "prevention". This study constitutes my Ph.D proposal in social anthropology. It is based on an ethnographic fieldwork mainly located in France. For the present communication, I will focus on a specific event and how it happened to shape radicalisation prevention policies at a national and local scale. I will use ethnographic material and interviews with past and present actors in the field of radicalisation prevention. The global theoretical framework of my Ph.D study lies on a political anthropology of sensibilities (Laplantine, 2000; Ranciere, 2005), it will serve to analyse the processes of definition of what is to "prevent" and how to do it.
The light will be brought on the attacks perpetrated by Mohammed Merah in 2012 in Toulouse, and how it is mobilised in different contexts to justify specific actions or choices. How are treated the places affected by the attacks (a Jewish school, a car park, an cash machine) and the place where Merah lived? How the event wards the ways of thinking and acting in radicalisation prevention at a local and national scale? Considered the first attack of the new "generation" of terrorism, how is the memory of the event it actualised through more recent facts?
