Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Cultural Politics of Immigrant Health Among West African Households in Paris, France

Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX

Investigators

Abstract

Since the 1970s, France has promoted increasingly restrictive immigration policies targeting "visible" (non-European) populations, especially those of West and North African origin. Regulation of these immigrant populations has been reported to be carried out by state-sponsored institutions, notably through the provision of social and health services. Under the supervision of Dr. Carolyn Sargent, graduate student Stephanie Larchanche-Kim will investigate the interaction between France's immigration politics and the strategies employed by West African immigrant households in Paris to negotiate state institutions, in particular, the social welfare and public health systems. Through participant observation, archival research, and structured interviews, the researcher will analyze the training, methods, objectives, and position of state-sponsored social workers and public health practitioners (assistantes sociales, ethnopsychiatry specialists, "cultural" mediators, and school psychologists) with respect to state policy and to the West African immigrant community. The objective is to assess the extent to which state workers effectively engage in promoting state political agendas on immigration. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and the collection of life histories, the researcher will also investigate West African households' objectives in accessing state-sponsored services. The goal is to determine their strategies for engaging with state-sponsored institutions, rather than with alternative sources of social and health support offered by informal grassroots associations and West African ritual specialists. This project contributes to the anthropological understanding of relations between the state, local institutions, and lived experience, as well as to anthropological analyses of how individuals assert agency and negotiate structural constraints. By documenting precise details of migrants' social and health dilemmas, the research will also clarify directions for effective policy designed to reduce existing social and health inequalities.