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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2022

‘We are here because you were there’, the role of colonial circulations and imperial wars in understanding one’s marginalised position in France

Claske Dijkema

Résumé

My research challenges the representation of marginalised social housing neighbourhoods in France as ghettos that need to be opened up and civilized. It is stigmatizing discourse, reductive categories and financial reasons that confine inhabitants of marginalized neighbourhoods rather than the latter’s supposed traditions and foreign cultures. The decolonial approach to these marginalised spaces I developed in my PhD research opens up to a much larger and less hierarchical view of spatial connections beyond the nation-state. Instead of seeing a neighbourhood that is turned inwards, I see a population that is open to many different spaces, but that is not necessarily oriented towards the centre, be it the city centre or the national capital. I see a plurality of presences and cultural circulations, a form of “bottom-up globalization” (Tarrius 2010). I look at the role of colonial circulations and the more recent imperial wars through in the way inhabitants of such a marginalised neighbourhoods in Grenoble make sense of their position in France. My observations are empirically grounded in my action-research with the People’s University of Villeneuve. With a diverse team we inquired what is left of the colonial past according to the viewpoint of (mostly racialized) inhabitants. Migration is obviously an important theme: one participant typically explained: “we are here [in France] because you were there”. The oppression of Palestinians is another important theme, which serves as a mirror through which Arabs understand their marginalised position in France. These observations hopefully contribute to rethink the global from the vantage point of the state’s margins.

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Géographie
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Dates et versions

hal-03954293 , version 1 (24-01-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03954293 , version 1

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Claske Dijkema. ‘We are here because you were there’, the role of colonial circulations and imperial wars in understanding one’s marginalised position in France. RGS–IBG annual conference, London (UK), Aug 2022, Newcastle (GB), United Kingdom. ⟨hal-03954293⟩
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