Panic at the beach. Analysing the construction of the burkini as a social problem using the ‘moral panic’ model

Abstract

The article takes as a case study the controversy that erupted in France in August 2016 following the de facto ban on burkinis on the beaches of the French riviera.  By using Cohen’s “moral panic” model in order to analyze how the burkini is being framed in the public debate, it tries to clarify what distinguishes moral panics from other forms of public debates such as controversies, affairs or scandals: namely, the social construction of the ”folk devil” as a stereotyped character threatening the very existence of society – a key aspect of the moral panic model that represents, in our view, Cohen’s unique contribution to the sociology of social problems. Whereas in the burkini’s case, this social construction is mainly the work of media-savvy intellectuals and career politicians, it cannot be limited to a strategic exchange of “coups” between these actors. First, because the construction of women wearing burkinis as “folk devils” owes a lot to preexisting, collective beliefs about the social control of Muslims (and especially Muslim women) in public spaces, that are specific to the French context. Second, because the case of the burkini allows us to focus on an aspect of moral panics too often neglected: namely, places and the different symbols they are endowed with. More than just a background element, beaches – and control over the definition of the “rules of the game” on these specific territories – appear here as what they actually are: disputed territories, whose “territorialization” and “patrimonialization” decisively contribute to the social construction of the “folk devil”.