Feminism from the Margin: Challenging the Paris/Banlieues Divide

Abstract

This paper aims to cast light on specifically French constructions of gender, citizenship and nationhood and articulate two bodies of work, one dealing with political mobilizations of racialized minorities in the French context, and the other dealing with gender concerns in urban policy. Emerging social movements in the urban area of Paris are having to take position in a context in which a normative "state feminism" is being used to stigmatize working-class neighbourhoods in the banlieues as well as their male inhabitants. This paper considers the "double bind" in which feminist activists, and women more generally, find themselves as a result. It argues that some formerly silenced groups are being granted space for expression by the current foregrounding of "women" in urban policy. Drawing on bell hooks' insights on the margin/centre tension in feminist theory as a useful way of thinking about the spatial dimension of these issues, the paper looks at one group in particular that defines itself and its strategies in spatial terms. Résumé: Cet article interroge les constructions spécifiquement françaises du genre, de la citoyenneté et du national en croisant deux axes de recherche, l'un qui porte sur les mobilisations politiques de minorités racisées dans le contexte français, l'autre qui examine l'introduction d'une perspective de genre dans les politiques urbaines. Les mouvements sociaux émergents dans l'aire urbaine parisienne prennent place dans un contexte de «féminisme d'Etat» normatif qui contribue à stigmatiser les quartiers défavorisés des banlieues et leurs habitants. Cet article s'intéresse à la tension que cette situation cause chez les féministes et les femmes de ces quartiers. Il montre en quoi des groupes auparavant réduits au silence trouvent un espace pour s'exprimer grâce en partie à la mise en avant des "femmes" dans les politiques urbaines. L'opposition marge/centre mise en évidence dans la théorie féministe par bell hooks s'avère heuristique pour penser les dimensions spatiales de ces questions, comme l'illustre le cas d'un groupe en particulier qui se définit et pense ses stratégies en termes spatiaux.

Translating land justice through comparison: a US–French dialogue and research agenda

“…As postcolonial scholars and others have shown, considering these intersecting dynamics is as also necessary in France and other European nations as it is in the US. Indeed, even if France or Britain or the Netherlands are not settler nations, their interrelated colonial histories—“the intimacies of four continents” (Lowe 2015 )—nevertheless continue to shape social relations today in their streets, parks, homes, and workplaces (Darly and McClintock 2017 ; Hancock 2017 ; Stoler 2011 ).…”

Spaces of Islamophobia and spaces of inequality in Greater Paris

“…Research on gentrification (Clerval, 2016), gated communities (Charmes, 2004;Le Goix, 2006), upper classes and elitism (Pinc¸on and Pinc¸on-Charlot, 2014) or deprived and troubled urban areas (Chignier-Riboulon, 2010; Wacquant, 1993) are primarily based on the Parisian region. Also, research on territorial and religious discrimination such as Islamophobia (Hancock, 2015(Hancock, , 2017Najib, 2019, Najib andHopkins, 2020) primarily focuses on Paris.…”

“…First, mapping Islamophobia provides a vantage point into the ways in which Muslim populations negotiate Islamophobia and can therefore bring an important contribution to the issue of Islamophobia, which was primarily explored by sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists (Allen, 2010;Fernando, 2014;Sayyid and Vakil, 2010;Scott, 2007). Second, the quantitative reading of Islamophobia is also a new contribution to the social scientific literature as most studies are primarily qualitative (Dunn, 2005;Dwyer, 1999;Githens-Mazer and Lambert, 2010;Hancock, 2017;Hopkins, 2016;Mansson McGinty et al, 2013;Zempi and Chakraborti, 2015). Quantitative research can have an important political and public impact because it can bring attention to alarming statistics.…”

“…Quantitative research can have an important political and public impact because it can bring attention to alarming statistics. Third, research on geographies of Islamophobia in France and in Paris remains less extensive (Hancock, 2015(Hancock, , 2017Najib, 2019;Hopkins, 2019, 2020) as well as challenging compared to other contexts such as UK, since religious and racial categories are not clearly recognized in France. Therefore, for all these various reasons, this paper brings new material to understandings of Islamophobia and Muslims' exclusion at a global, national and urban scales, and in particular, in the French and Parisian context.…”

When the spotlight is always on the neighborhood: LGBTQ people from a Muslim background deconstructing imagined borders in Brussels, Belgium

“…Given the centrality of attitudes towards gender equality and sexual diversity in civilizational discourses, homo/bi/transphobia and sexism are prominent among these social issues. Hancock (2017) notes how the spatialization of sexism to specific areas, in the case of the banlieues of Paris, serves two purposes. On the one hand, it allows the blaming of specific groups -e.g.…”