– Researchers : M. Hovanessian, M. Laëthier, N. Puig, S. Souchaud
Doctoral Student: L. Rosenfeld
A common history among different types of mobility (slave trade, colonization, world wars, and colonial conflicts), postcolonial and contemporary relationships between governments and societies that take a multitude of shapes, and current and past mobilities (migrations, circulations…) makes migration and migratory projects an integral part of the social representation that we seek to decipher. Research in this program will focus on population movements, in particular the evolution of the distribution and composition of migratory flows in certain regions (the southern cone of the Americas for example), which causes the reformation of working class neighborhoods as a result of the arrival of new migrants. Other topics of study will include the new social relationships that these population movements create, as well as the transformation of local and national representation that can be generated by specific political or economic situations, events related to climate change, or the articulation of national and international migrations.
One part of this research project will analyze the practices of mobility that result from events over which individuals have no control. These practices imply traveling with more or less ease, comfort, or recognition and legitimacy in the social spheres that actors identify as near or far. The goal will be to shed light on different aspects of the migration of legitimate or illegitimate refugees and their articulation with other migratory forms by examining the journeys of migrants that revolve between places of wandering, of transit, or of immobility, whether these be camp cities or diasporic spaces. This research will also involve territorial systems that produce ethnic stigmatization, informal economies, and an amplified and unregulated use of workers according to the logics of globalization. Finally, a practice of ” low-level anthropology “ will be favored, giving preference to the voices and experiences of migrants and refugees.
Another part of this research will analyze the structural role of migrations, namely their motivations and their consequences, the social, political, economic, and moral importance of migrants in the locations of departure and arrival, in order to understand how representations and practices of mobility constitute social organizations, networks of identity and power that participate in the reconfigurations and mutations of sending and receiving societies. They thus emphasize the way that migrations modify the context of communities that migrants leave, while connecting different paths of migration and the places where migrants settle abroad.
These questions will be addressed through the following studies:
Evolution of migratory flows in the South American cone (S. Souchaud)
Passages and crossings of Palestinians in Libya (N. Puig)
Migrations and mutations in post-communist spaces (M. Hovanessian)
Haïtian migrations in the Caribean (M. Laëthier)
Doctoral theses in progress : ” Political involvement and collective action among migrants from the Comores islands in the Paris region “ (L. Rosenfeld)
