French Postcolonial Nationalism and Afro-French Subjectivities

278 Pages·2017·3.38 MB·English

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Open Access Dissertations
9-2011
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Yasser A. Munif
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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FRENCH POSTCOLONIAL NATIONALISM AND
AFRO-FRENCH SUBJECTIVITIES

A Dissertation Presented

by

YASSER A. MUNIF

Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

SEPTEMBER 2011

SOCIOLOGY
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© Copyright by Yasser A. Munif 2011

All Rights Reserved

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FRENCH POSTCOLONIAL NATIONALISM AND
AFRO-FRENCH SUBJECTIVITIES

A Dissertation Presented

by

YASSER A. MUNIF

Approved as to style and content by:

__________________________________________
Agustin Lao-Montes, Chair

__________________________________________
Joya Misra, Member

__________________________________________
Millie Thayer, Member

__________________________________________
Henry Geddes, Member

_________________________________________
Don Tomaskovic-Decey, Department Head
Department of Sociology
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DEDICATION

For my parents and Elsa

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Agustin Lao-Montes, for his graciousness with his analytical insights
and his time in overseeing the writing of this dissertation. During the years I spent at the
University of Massachusetts, Agustin showed a tremendous amount of intellectual generosity
and moral support in my regard. I am also deeply grateful to Joya Misra, Millie Thayer, and
Henry Geddes who provided support in many different ways during the different stages of
the dissertation. They provided valuable comments that have helped me express myself
more cogently and have pushed me to delve deeper into my analysis and thinking. I want to
express my gratitude to my mentors and teachers at the University of Massachusetts and
beyond: Talal Asad, Ann Stoler, R. Radhakrishnan, and James Cohen. Their mentorship has
challenged my thinking and opened my eyes to new ways to apprehend the world.
My two years of fieldwork in Paris would have not been possible without the invaluable
contributions of many activists, social workers, municipal employee, residents of public
housing, youth, and various social actors I met in Clichy-sous-Bois. I will not disclose their
names to protect their identity but their stories have taught me more than I can thank them
for. I was also lucky to meet and be welcomed by Les Indigènes de la République, many of
whom became close friends. They provided me with valuable information regarding the
conditions of brown and black communities living in France. My diasporic Parisian friends,
Sadri Khiari, Hassan Mezin, Houria Bouteldja, Stella Magliani-Belkacem, Youssef
Boussoumah, Hajar Alem, Ziad Barakat, and Samir Abdalla, as well as Belgian friends, Sarah
Bracke, and Nadia Fadil have not only been supportive of my work but also welcoming me
in their circles of decolonial thinking and postcolonial struggles.
I am indebted to many friends at the University of Massachusetts. They provided critical
comments on my work and inspired me throughout the years I lived in Northampton. Todd
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Evans, Srinivas Lankala, Swati Birla, Ilgin Erdem, Aaron Winslow, Hasan Comert, Erika
Marquez, Ozlem Goner, Ghazah Abassi, Vanessa Adel, Annette Hunt, Kathleen Hulton,
Carlos Valderrama, Sirisha Naidu, Peter Manolakos, Aurora Vergara-Figueroa, Abby
Templer, Jung Yup Lee, Megan Tady, Brian Baldi, Lesley Yalen, and Jeff Napolitano and
many others have supported me, each one in their own way: constructive criticism, humor,
“ethnic” food, underground music, fascinating discussions, and tactical grassroots activism. I
am also highly indebted to my friend Jed Murr who came to visit me in France and Belgium
in the early stages of my fieldwork. Since then, we have had countless passionate
conversations about the French Empire and its colonial peripheries in Paris, Brussels,
Leuven, Los Angels, Seattle, and Northampton.
This dissertation was completed in the summer of 2011 after the birth of my daughter Yara
and many sleepless nights. The few last pages were written while I was holding Yara in one
hand and typing on a keyboard with another. I wish to thank Elsa Wiehe, my intellectual
partner and beloved spouse, for taking care of our baby while I was writing. Without her
affective, intellectual, and moral support, I wouldn’t have been able to finish on time. Elsa
supported my work throughout the years while she challenged my ideas productively in
every way possible especially during our frequent walks in downtown Northampton. My
gratitude goes also to Emilie and Kathryn Wiehe for taking care of Yara in the most critical
moments. Finally, I would like to thank my family, Azza, Laila, Hani, Amr Salahieh, Iyad
Charchar, and Salma Alazmah for their continual support and my wonderful mother and
father for their patience and encouragements.
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ABSTRACT
FRENCH POSTCOLONIAL NATIONALISM AND
AFRO-FRENCH SUBJECTIVITIES

SEPTEMBER 2011

YASSER MUNIF, B.S., UNIVERSITY OF BALAMAND

M.S., UNIVERSITY OF BALAMAND

Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor Agustin Lao-Montes

This research examines urban renewal in Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb of 30,000 inhabitants
located in the northeast of Paris. It studies the modalities of spatial racialization, nation
building, and subject formation among Afro-French young men living in the city. It also
builds on a world-historical perspective to explore the diasporic webs in which the lives of
Afro-French are embedded. Taking spatial racialization as a point of entry, the study
attempts to understand how governmental strategies and urban policies regulate lives and
residential patterns in the city. Three lines of investigation are pursued: 1) an examination of
Afro-French racialization and genealogies; 2) an analysis of narratives and struggles of these
communities and their impact on neoliberal spaces; 3) an exploration of the various ways
spatial governmentality constrains and/or produces Afro-Frenchness.

The primary purpose of this ethnographic research is to comprehend the French colonial
history and its impact on the racialization of diasporic Afro-French living in metropolitan
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France. For this end, the study proposes the notion of “Afro-French,” an analytical concept
that designates a constellation of groups from Sub-Saharan, North African, and Caribbean
origins. The term provides a heuristic to comprehend the urban and cultural experiences of
diasporic sub-groups who have different but overlapping genealogies. Second, the project
helps understand why Afro-French living in Clichy-sous-Bois embody and at the same time
transgress official narratives of the nation. It argues that France’s nationalism, like other
forms of European nationalisms, is facing a contradictory moment in the neoliberal
conjuncture. On the one hand, discourses about liberalization of the economy involve the
deployment of narratives that celebrate mobility and flexibility. This new dependence on a
global neoliberal economy destabilizes national economies and erodes the state’s structures.
On the other hand, state actors diffuse identitarian and xenophobic discourses that blame
ethnic and religious minorities for the socio-economic crisis. Third, the study argues that
spatial governmentality and urban strategies enable certain aspects of Afro-Frenchness but
constrain others: there is no homogenous or unified logic to regulate lives and spaces in
Clichy.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................................v
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................vii
LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................................xii
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................1
1.1.Context...............................................................................................................................1
1.1.1. Afro-French: A New Ethnicity?...............................................................2
1.1.2. The history of the Banlieues......................................................................4
1.2.Research Objectives.........................................................................................................5
1.3.Urban ethnography..........................................................................................................7
1.4.Research Methodology....................................................................................................8
1.4.1. Archival Research........................................................................................9
1.4.2. Ethnographic research.............................................................................10
1.5.The Structure of the Study............................................................................................12

2. A GENEALOGY OF AFRO-FRENCH COMMUNITIES................................................14
2.1.Introduction....................................................................................................................14
2.2.Who is Afro-French.......................................................................................................16
2.3.Rethinking Race..............................................................................................................20
2.4.Nineteenth Century housing in France.......................................................................27
2.5.Algerians..........................................................................................................................31
2.5.1. Three Waves of Colonization in Algeria...............................................31
2.5.2. Colonial Urban Planning..........................................................................37
2.5.3. Algerian Migrations to France.................................................................40
2.5.4. The Second Phase of Spatial Distribution............................................43
2.5.5. The Formation of the Bidonville............................................................47
2.5.6. The Logic of the Bidonville From Inside..............................................48
2.5.7. Between Colony and Metropolitan France...........................................51
2.5.8. Spatial Racialization of Algerians............................................................52
2.5.9. The dismantling of bidonvilles................................................................54
2.6.Antilleans.........................................................................................................................56
2.6.1. The Colonial History of the French Caribbean...................................56
2.6.2. Migration to the Metropole.....................................................................61
2.6.3. Spatial Regulation of Antillean Populations.........................................67
2.7.Sub-Saharan Africans.....................................................................................................69
2.7.1. Colonial Expansion...................................................................................69
2.7.2. Migration and Housing............................................................................71
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