Are French people white?: Towards an understanding of whiteness in Republican France. Issue 5 (3rd September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Beaman, Jean
• Is Part Of: Identities. Volume 26:Issue 5(2019)
• Page Start: 546
• Page End: 562
• Publication Date: 2019-09-03
• Subjects: Race/ethnicity -- France -- whiteness -- belonging -- national identity -- colorblind; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic relations -- Periodicals; Ethnicity -- Periodicals; Group identity -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2018.1543831
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1070-289X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Based on ethnographic research of France's North African second-generation, I bring together literatures on racial formation, whiteness, and race and racism in Europe to discuss how whiteness operates in French society. I discuss how respondents must navigate a supposedly colorblind society in which whiteness is default. Because these individuals are racialized as non-white, they are not seen as French by others. I discuss how they wrestle with definitions of French identity as white and full belonging in French society as centered on whiteness. I argue that salience of whiteness is part of France's racial project in which differences among individuals are marked without explicit state-sanctioned racial and ethnic categories. This has implications for considering how whiteness is crucial to understanding European identity more broadly, including through the rise of the Far-Right, the recent Brexit and Leave campaigns, and anti-immigration sentiment throughout Western Europe.