Introduction. Criminalizing the Casbahs

This research reveals how racialized policing in colonial North Africa, particularly in the Kasbah of Algiers and Rue des Chapeliers in Marseille, shaped the lives of North African subjects. Despite inefficiencies like language barriers and corruption, French police increasingly asserted control over social relations, private spaces, and daily lives by linking race with space, portraying North Africans as inherent criminals and their spaces as zones of danger. This expansion of police power was not inevitable but resulted from specific discourses and practices that criminalized North African communities.

Beaujon, D. (2025). Introduction. Criminalizing the Casbahs, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501781476.003.0001