Death ambiances. Opening up a path to retaliation through screams, blood, and tears.

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When social sciences frame retaliation as either part and parcel of a revenge system or a by-product of a code of honor, the ad hoc lived experience of being moved by vindictive and hate feelings is relinquished. A comprehensive approach of violence among youths living in the housing projects in the Paris suburbs ought to take into account the suffering stemming from overwhelming events. Apprehended through phenomenology, the moral obligation at the core of retaliation is ingrained in diffused ambiances upon which affective and ethic tones emerge. The flow of emotions is channeled along a time sequence of ambiances which, progressively, entail the emergence of the imperative “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. First, the “shitty atmosphere” of the neighborhood. Then, the shock received for witnessing q friend’s death. Eventually, the secular and religious ceremonies that allow the youths to temporize.