Lay Representations of Madness and Social Control in a French Poor District: the Case of the Young People of the Street

The article is centred on the lay figures of madness as elaborated within a group of young people tending to appropriate the streets of its district, a wokring-class district affected by the socioeconomic crisis. It is a sociology of madness which is not a sociology of the worlds of science and psychiatry. The study tries to clarify the genesis of these lay figures and is interested in their normative functions. In conclusion, it shows two major kinds of "madness": 1) one that we can call "positive madness", in the sense that it complies with a number of social rules, reponds to social competition and thus allows an access to the economic and symbolic resources of the concerned group; 2) one that we can call "negative madness", in the sense that it no longer refers to the social game in question (or refers to it awkwardly) and generates exclusion.