Search

This article examines the collective actions undertaken by two groups of Chinese female migrants in Paris: sex workers who opposed a new law on prostitution, and manicurists who joined trade unions and went on strike. These women share similar geographical origins and migration projects; many came to France alone, and thus have much weaker social capital than other Chinese migrants in Paris, which pushed them to choose professional sectors viewed as marginal or even stigmatized. Despite their precarious situation, their marginal position has created conditions for collective action, enabling them to develop strong sense of collective belonging and receive support from organizations outside the community. These findings show how a marginal position in an ethnic community can be a triggering factor for migrants' inclusion and political engagement in the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a microhistorical perspective on interethnic violence. It focuses on a fait divers that took place in 1900 near Paris and was widely construed as a result of ethnic antagonism. Drawing from a multitude of archival records, the article critically assesses the retrospective accounts of that multi-participant fight, and resituates it in its social context. It argues that a variety of factors were at play, among which ethnicity was not dominant. This assessment emerges from a close analysis of the combatants' background and contingent rivalries, as well as an examination of structural causes such as hyper-masculinity and alcoholism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous diasporas are an emerging social and political phenomenon, and conceptually offer a productive avenue for critical research in the study of ethnicity and migration. The politics of Indigenous peoples in diaspora have not received enough scholarly attention, and this article seeks to respond by examining how indigeneity is articulated by the many Amazigh (non-Arab North African) cultural associations of France. Drawing on Stuart Hall's articulation theory, this article contributes a nuanced approach to the relational concept of indigeneity, exploring four key ways in which disparate subjectivities are articulated with indigeneity in the discourse and practices of the diasporic Amazigh movement. Firstly, diaspora Imazighen articulate with the Global Indigenous Movement. Secondly, they position themselves and their homeland populations as colonised people. Thirdly, they perform cultural authenticity within their project of cultural and linguistic revitalisation. Lastly, they practice a village territoriality that articulates with indigeneity by privileging rurality and pre-colonial political institutions. These diaspora articulations are argued to produce a pro-indigenous, anti-essentialist discourse, which highlights the relational nature of indigeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the meaning of public space and impact of heritage-led urban redevelopment in a diverse neighbourhood in Montpellier, France. It traces the relocation of a North African market from a central city plaza in favour of French antiques, and the resulting contestation over what constitutes local heritage, who has the capacity to determine how public space is used, and the seeming erasure of migrant identities and memories from an important community site. The paper considers how urban areas are re-imagined through a change in the materiality of public space, and outlines the role of outdoor markets in defining the social function of such spaces. The paper examines the intertwining of physical erasure (urban redevelopment and the removal of a diverse food market) and cultural erasure (the loss of certain community memories), and how these processes speak to broader debates about French national identity, cultural heritage, and the meanings attached to public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response from the author of the book "Ethnic Minority Migrants in Britain & France: Integration Trade-Offs" to several reviews the book is presented. Topics include his arguments on integration trade-offs, social segregation, postcolonial immigrants, how segregated networks can leverage economic and political gain, and how integration trade-offs can develop across generations.

Researchers in many countries have identified racial differences in rates of civilian-police interactions such as identity checks or stop-and-frisk. Are frequent police identity checks associated with feelings of national identification and if so, in what ways? Using three dimensions of identity in a nationally representative French sample of immigrants and second-generation individuals, I find that experiencing frequent identity checks is associated with an increase in the likelihood of country of origin identification, a decrease in the likelihood of French identification, and a decrease in the likelihood of believing others see one as French. I also find that these relationships and their magnitude vary across immigrant generation and immigrant region of origin. These findings point to frequent police identity checks as an important mechanism through which street-level state practices impact immigrant integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today the inclusion of non-citizens in the electorate is an increasingly common phenomenon. Yet, we know relatively little about under what conditions some states extend such voting rights to non-citizens earlier than others. In this paper, we investigate the timing of local enfranchisement policies for non-citizens in 28 democracies from 1980 to 2010 using event-history analysis. Adding to the conditions studied in earlier work, we examine the extent to which demographic composition, immigration policy regimes, and political partisanship relate to the timing of non-citizen suffrage. We find that higher shares of immigrant residents delay whereas EU membership and economic openness advance the timing of voting rights for non-citizens. At all demographic heterogeneity conditions, less permissive immigration regimes have been able to enfranchise non-citizens earlier. The findings suggest that, over time, having more left-wing parties in the government accelerates the timing of enfranchisement, while right-wing parties contribute to delays. The article brings forward new data and an original explanatory framework emphasising relevance of partisanship and immigration policy at different demographic contexts. Our analysis sheds light on the idiosyncratic state practices in the timing of enfranchisement reforms adding to the debates in migration and citizenship studies and the broader comparative politics field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how three major French cities designed their immigrant incorporation policies in the early twenty-first century. While political and administrative structures are similar in these cities, the favoured approaches – integration, equality, diversity – and the importance assigned to the issue of migration differed. Four factors explain the local shape of immigrant incorporation policies: the relationship with national authorities, the mobilization of European opportunities, the capacities of civil society, and the career paths of policy officers. This qualitative research provides insights into the "local turn" of migration policy in practice. It further illustrates how French cities may overcome a national model, although their fight against ethno-racial inequalities remains weak and inconsequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late nineteenth century, France has been a destination for people outside its borders. In recent decades, most immigrants have come from outside of Europe, often from ex-colonies in Northern Africa, West Africa, and Indochina. The Parisian area has welcomed a disproportionate share of these immigrants and neighborhoods have been shaped and reshaped to reflect their presence. This paper examines three neighborhoods in Paris—Belleville, the Triangle de Choisy, and the Goutte d'Or—which are each composed of and shaped by separate ethnic populations. To a great extent, these neighborhoods are imprinted by commercial activity, often involving customers who come from well outside the neighborhood and networks that extend beyond the nation. They also show patterns of multiethnicity which allows for difference between groups to be maintained, even as the space shared between them is effectively negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The FACEEF, the largest federation of Spanish associations in France, has been committed, for about 20 years, to a series of project to promote the memory of Spanish immigration in France. The FACEEF reflects the complexity of Spanish migration to France, made of intertwined political and economic migration waves. In consequence, its members are bearer of heterogeneous memories. How do the FACEEF officials deal with this heterogeneity? How can they weave together more or less coherent narratives and representations into a shared collective memory? The study highlights the key role of the political refugees who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, and this, even if they form a minority in number within the FACEEF. The favourable political context in Spain also plays a role. The FACEEF elaborates a hybrid narrative that brings together the political and economic experiences of migration. In doing so, it creates a new representation of the Spanish migration as political-economic phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, the concept of transnationalism has been increasingly used and discussed. Some authors have contested its novelty, arguing that all types of migrants, including internal ones, tend to remain connected to their home place. In this paper, we provide new quantitative evidence to show that migration, be it internal or international, entails a similar sort of connectedness between places. Using a nationally representative survey carried out in France (TeO, N = 21,761), we systematically compare the transterritorial connections of international migrants, French migrants born abroad and French migrants born in overseas territories. Our findings show that all migrants maintain transborder ties, with particular intensity among French overseas migrants. Owing to border effects, oversenas migrants exhibit higher levels of sociopolitical and "re-migration" connections and are less engaged in economic relations. The results also show that transterritorial connections are affected by similar determinants across the three categories of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking at the French approach to migration in four key political moments between 2014 and 2018, three main narratives can be seen as dominating the French debate on migration, namely the Westphalian, the humanitarian and the multilateral, each related to various justice claims. Surprisingly, a securitarian approach was not as dominant as expected. However, different justice claims were used to support various political interests, often in a clearly instrumental way. In France today, the politics of migration are still important for the country's foreign policy and are not just a domestic issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After independence, Mexico became the destination for a current of migration from Barcelonnette, France. This migration increased between 1870 and 1930. The combination of several conditions, strategies, and characteristics of these businessmen's social networks allowed a significant proportion to become wealthy. This paper uses the example of the Barcelonnettes to show that the development of manufacturing industry in Mexico was not directly dependent on the need for foreign currency generated by exports in this period; however these manufacturers benefited from the growth of the domestic market, which was the result of increase of exports of primary goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Walls Fall is a manifesto written by Glissant and Chamoiseau against the creation of the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Co-development established in 2007 by French president Nicolas Sarkozy. The manifesto is a call against the building of walls that separate us rather than relate us one to another in a society. Walls are contradictory to the notion of Relation that Glissant and Chamoiseau advocate, where one would be open to the unpredictable and unforeseeable. Both authors criticize the notion of a national identity that would be fixed and firmly established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose to extend demographic multistate models by adding a behavioural element: behavioural rules explain intentions and thus transitions. Our framework is inspired by the Theory of Planned Behaviour We exemplify our approach with a model of migration from Senegal to France. Model parameters are determined using empirical data where available. Parameters for which no empirical correspondence exists are determined by calibration. Age- and period-specific migration rates are used for model validation. Our approach adds to the toolkit of demographic projection by allowing for shocks and social influence, which alter behaviour in non-linear ways, while sticking to the general framework of multistate modelling. Our simulations yield that higher income growth in Senegal leads to higher emigration rates in the medium term, while a decrease in fertility yields lower emigration rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrant integration has been on the political agenda in France since at leastthe late 1980s, yet starting in the early 2000s this issue became bound up withconcerns about the oppression of minority women. This article examines theevolution of the issue over two decades, pinpointing when and why debatesover integration took on a gendered cast. The article's explanation centres on twofactors – the growing threat of the Front National coupled with the legitimationof gender-based claims in French politics. These claims were embraced byconservative politicians seeking to adopt a harder line toward immigration andled to the refashioning of core Republican concepts such as égalité and laïcité asbeing about gender equality. The use of similar themes by the Front National as ithas sought to move in from the political fringe reveals how gendered claims canbe deployed in an effort to keep anti-immigrant policies within the boundariesof liberal values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel La Jalousie (1957), the essay contends that Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005) takes its viewers inside a postcolonial white paranoia which is, arguably, the root cause of the exclusion, segregation and racist discrimination that many immigrants from the former colonies – and their children – are experiencing in contemporary France. It suggests that the entire film be read as the protagonist’s paranoid vision that imagines white privileges to be menaced by some non-white conspiracy. His obsession, which hinges on a fear of a reversal of the power inherent in ‘the gaze’, as brought out in the central ‘stalking plot’, informs the entire film’s narration and audiovisual make-up and explains, among other things, the serial repetitions and variations of certain settings and objects as the protagonist’s desperate attempt to create order in a threatening world. The construction of the film, however, also allows Haneke to critically comment upon his protagonist’s paranoia and demonstrate its ill-foundedness, for instance by pointing to a possible ‘banal conviviality’ (Paul Gilroy) between people of different ethnicities, cultures and religions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses network organizations founded by descendants of Turkish migrants in the Netherlands and France. By surveying members of two such organizations and interviewing several of their board members, we learn how these organizations function, their success in building and extending social networks, and their efficacy at improving labour market prospects for young second-generation professionals of Turkish descent. Our findings reveal a hybrid structure, whereby the organizations gear many of their activities towards mainstream society. In comparison to traditional immigrant organizations, their attitude is more open to other social groups, yet they still have a clear stronghold in the ethnic immigrant community. We conclude that ethnicity is not the main element in the successful second generation’s organizing process. Factors such as educational trajectories, professional ambitions, feelings of responsibility for other members and newly acquired socioeconomic status are the main reasons for this group to organize. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1962, the BUMIDOM, a state agency, was founded to organize and increase migration flows from the West Indies and La Reunion to the metropole. A major difference with the immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa was that, as French citizens, the migrants from the DOM were encouraged to come to metropole. Paris was a pivotal place where they were welcomed thanks to the creation of community centers. But experiences of living in the capital city also exposed the hardship and contradictions of this migration. Indeed, the egalitarian and republican discourse generated hope among migrants while the living conditions, particularly housing, were found to be disappointing. For these migrants, citizenship was not only formal but it enabled them to define places in Paris, such as the community centers, as specifically West Indian or Reunionese. These were spaces where a regional identity was built in-between a racialized definition and the2017 celebration of cultural particulars. It also expressed an irreducible difference between Sub-Saharan migrants on the one hand and West Indian and Reunionese ones on the other. Then, the common experience of discrimination was not enough to create a unified representation of a Black Paris beyond legal statuses and geographical origins. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A response from the author of the book "Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison" to several reviews of his book is presented. Topics include the book's comparative research design and methodology, immigration experiences and processes in the U.S. and France, and media representations of immigration and the factors that influence journalistic organizations' practices.

Copyright of Modern & Contemporary France is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The ubiquity of resilience—the process of patterned adjustments adopted by a society or an individual in the face of endogenous or exogenous shocks—across the broad social sciences spectrum is undisputable. Yet, migration scholars have been relatively absent from this vibrant discussion. The present article suggests a theorisation of the link between migration, resilience and security by examining ways in which resilience precedes a socially constructed understanding of international migration as a security issue. The article explores how the surge in worldwide refugee numbers and associated mass migration phenomena were not only interpreted as a shock in post-Cold War France, but also instrumentalised by dominant discourses to underscore the necessity of adopting a particular pattern of adjustments to uphold the status quo against changes provoked by these migratory events. The social construction of refugee movements and mass migration as a significant disturbance requiring France to opt for a resilient strategy has led, ultimately, to the securitisation of migration. In a broader sense, the article presents a new lens through which to analyse situations and conditions in which resilience has led to and induced the securitisation of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French colonialism resulted in the inclusion of large numbers of West Africans into French educational institutions. Furthermore, the Senegambian region has a long history of intermarriage with French citizens. This paper draws on this history to explore the interplay between migration, education and binational marriage over several generations of West African students, with a particular focus on Senegal. Students from Francophone countries continue to seek educational opportunities in France, but in recent years they have been increasingly affected by the tightening up of immigration policies. In this context, this paper suggests that marriage to a French spouse often plays an important role in the fulfilment of educational projects, and that this role is contingent on issues of gender and class. At times, however, tensions between marriage in France and social expectations back home end up compromising education altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution examines the management of self-mutilations of detained immigrants awaiting deportation in French immigration detention centres. Drawing on ethnographic data, it analyses the struggles opposing members of detention staff over the prevention of self-inflicted wounds and the regulation of immigrant anxiety. They unfold around a contradiction: detention centres are not only a violent police institution, but also a ‘humanitarian’ realm, where extreme suffering calls for immediate relief. I first describe the ‘risk assessment system’ organised inside the detention centre to prevent mutilations through medical expertise. I then focus on practical dilemmas faced by Human Rights advocates operating inside detention centres. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores how EU enlargement and the concomitant migration of some Roma to Western Europe influenced non-governmental organization (NGO) activity and the representation of Roma interests. It contributes to our understanding of whether European integration advances or reduces opportunities for representation and participation of marginalized groups. Based in part on interviews with NGOs advocating for Roma migrants in France, the author finds that the freedom of movement that came with EU membership gave rise to new and expanded representation of Roma interests through NGOs, with the EU playing an important role in this advocacy. For the most part, however, it has not led to greater Roma participation or to policy responses aimed at improving their situation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cet article se propose d’observer ce qui dans les œuvres des deux cinéastes Abdellatif Kechiche et Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche relève de la contestation et de la défense des droits humains. Il se base sur un corpus de films mettant en exergue la dénonciation de la politique migratoire française, tout en la confrontant aux idéaux prônés par la République. Il s’agit également d’examiner de quelle manière cette dénonciation prend une dimension universelle avec le filmVénus noireoù Kechiche procède à la critique d’une hégémonie blanche et raciale basée sur des présupposés scientifiques. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]