Liminal Lives: Immigration Status, Gender, and the Construction of Identities Among Malian Migrants in Paris

In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Volume 50, Issue 1, p. 9-26

Abstract

Strategies of state surveillance shape the construction of migrant identities in France. Focusing on migrants from the Senegal River Valley in West Africa, the authors suggest that ideological and institutional constraints concerning legal status and family reunification create a shifting world of unstable identities for these migrants. The fall 2005 riots across France have been widely cited as an illustration of the failure of the French model of immigrant integration. Restrictive legislation since 1975 has challenged gender relations in migrant communities. The gendered production of immigrant identities merits special attention; women's and men's diverse experiences require differing strategies of adjustment. During the past 30 years, anti-immigrant discourse/practice has effectively contested the state policy of integration and its emphasis on achieving nationality as the ultimate immigrant objective. The gendered strategies of West African migrants demonstrate that state polices have created a new category of migrants whose everyday lives seem permanently in transition.