CoDE seminar: French citizens of Indian descent: resisting invisibility and creating “new” French identities - Dr Manuela Latchoumaya
| Dates: | 17 October 2024 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) |
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| How much: | Free |
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Please join us for the next Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) seminar, by Dr Manuela Latchoumaya (University of Manchester).
This is a hybrid event. Please register for zoom joining details.
‘French citizens of Indian descent: resisting invisibility and creating “new” French identities’ - Dr Manuela Latchoumaya (University of Manchester)
Despite long colonial entanglements between France and India, groups of South Asian descent generally and of Indian descent specifically are invisible in mainstream representations of French society and history. In addition to the French State’s official policy of colour-blindness – which denies the relevance of ‘race’ as a category shaping inequalities in France – successive governments have advanced a narrow understanding of post-colonial French society as being ‘Black-Blanc-Beur’ (‘Black-white-North African’).
This talk will discuss the ways in which French citizens of Indian descent unsettle both dominant definitions of Frenchness as whiteness and current categories used to discuss ‘race’ in France. It will focus on the experiences of two groups: the children of Indian migrants who came to France in the 1960s from former French colonies (‘Establishments’) in India; and Indo-Guadeloupeans, who acquired French citizenship via the indenture system in French Caribbean overseas territories.
Drawing on interviews with French South Asian activists and individual Franco-Indian and Indo-Guadeloupean participants, the talk will highlight the ways that respondents seek to create a ‘Brown’ French identity that (re)connects France, India and the Caribbean.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.217 University Place or online (register for zoom details)
University Place
Manchester
