The making of a racial scandal: security and the location of critique

Abstract Scandals have become an important mode of making visible and knowable the violence of security practices. This is done through a revelatory mechanism that rests on the staging of secrecy to expose transgressive behaviours. This article argues that most conceptualizations of scandals rely on a problematic understanding of critique, one that rests on an understanding of epistemology as revelation. Revelation, however, implies a hierarchical and unilateral relationship between an all-knowing entity and a community of faith. Critique through this epistemology is limited to questioning the strength of the community's faith in its normative order. The purpose of revelation is to produce an authoritative, yet authorless, voice that participates in the assemblage of credibility to redeem the community's moral identity. Instead, we should turn to the reference points articulated in the debates generated by scandals, to resituate critique within their sociality. Such a sociality, as demonstrated through the analysis of the 2023 shooting of French teenager Nahel Merzouk, enables the formulations of solidarities across space and time. Paying attention to the sociality of critique allows us to understand the crucial role scandals play in the (re)formation of collective identities and their memorialization.