Seizing the attacks

What can the social sciences do in the face of attacks? To tackle them, at an equal distance from fears and imposed representations. From cognitive sciences to economics, including anthropology and political science, this issue provides an overview of knowledge on the social effects of attacks.

Attacks are not times conducive to reflection or to taking a step back. They stir up fears, inflame tempers, and call, from a political point of view, for strong and rapid responses rather than calm analyses or contradictory debates. Faced with attacks, the human and social sciences are often, for this reason, perceived as useless, when they are not simply considered obsolete. Thus, there were American academics after the attacks of September 11 who considered them to be properly overtaken by the event and its stakes, and who believed that all that was left was to choose sides and prepare for war.

This file of The Life of Ideas intends to prove the contrary and show that, in their diversity, the human and social sciences, far from being disarmed or helpless in the face of such events, on the contrary contain valuable knowledge and tools for those who want to seize the attacksrather than being caught up in their imposed representations. The attacks are indeed subject to the most common operations of the social sciences: it is possible to objectify their effects, to put them at a distance and in perspective. Our own reactions, collective and subjective, to them can be the object of reflexivity, the only way to prevent us from plunging into the maelstrom – to borrow an image from Norbert Elias – that is created in their wake.

If the expression were not overused, we would readily say that attacks are “total social facts”, so true is it that their effects are felt in all areas of our collective existence: social cohesion, economic activity, political life, legal system, etc. This is why this issue mobilizes authors and knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, from cognitive sciences to political science, including economics, sociology, anthropology, and image and media analysis. In this, it demonstrates the fact that the confrontation of knowledge and interdisciplinary dialogue are capable of producing a collective intelligence on what our societies experience when faced with an attack.

Summary

Editorial, “Are we all affected by the attacks?” (interview with G. Truc)

Maëlle Bazin, “When the street goes into mourning”

Mathieu Carpentier, “Terrorism and the rule of law”

Guillaume Dezecache, “The paradoxes of panic fear”

Sarah Gensburger, “Chronicles of the ordinary after the attacks”

Elena Stancanelli, “The uncertain effects of terror”

Vincent Tiberj, “A less xenophobic France?”

Gérôme Truc, “The attack, the jihadist and the territory”

Already in The Life of Ideas

Pierre-Yves Baudot, “January 11: crisis or consensus?”

Gérôme Truc, “September 11 and its double”