State, Nation & Immigration
My work on the history of immigration
Une politisation feutrée.
Hauts fonctionnaires & immigration en France
Belin, 2009
This first book, the result of my thesis, deals with the transformation of the French state since the 1960s and immigration issues.
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This book offers readers the chance to adopt, for the duration of a book, the point of view of these senior civil servants, who didn't necessarily have to "cross paths" with foreign workers in order to prescribe a legislative framework, refuse funding for social housing, sign circulation agreements with emigration countries, or even edit a TV program on racism that they felt might "shock" a French audience...
From Algerian independence (1962), to the announcement of a halt to immigration (1974), to Stoléru's laws of return, this book shows how what is played out in the field of power can have effects on those who, at the other end of the social spectrum, find themselves assigned to the arbitrariness of foreigners' rights and to stigmatizing discourses.
L'invention de l'immigration
Agone, 2010
This issue of the journal Agone, coordinated with Choukri Hmed, looks at the public construction of a "social problem of immigration".
The aim of this collective work is to turn the lens of objectification on its head, and to focus exclusively on the practices of those who, from 'above', force categories of public intervention and contribute to the construction of a public problem of immigration. The contributions proposed here reintroduce into the analysis all the actors who produce a discourse on immigration: politicians, state agents, sociologists, activists, journalists and so on.
La production officielle des différences culturelles
Cultures & conflits, 2018
This issue of "Cultures et Conflits", coordinated with Narguesse Keyhani, is devoted to the official production of cultural differences, notably by state agents and politicians.
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Discourses on 'interculturality' or 'cultural insecurity' tend to present the social world as if it were simply made up of inhabitants with fixed, confrontational cultures. This journal issue is certainly concerned with the 'cultures' of immigrants and colonized populations. But it focuses on the official, administrative and political actors who help to produce them, by typifying social reality and disseminating representations that are often simplified and culturalist. In so doing, it aims to reintroduce into the analysis the role of state agents and their intermediaries, who constantly classify and rank cultural practices.
Other publications on immigration
Since 2002
Since 2002, I have published several articles or contributions on immigration and decolonization issues, see in particular:
• « Les agents de l’Etat face à leur propre pouvoir. Eléments pour une micro-analyse des mots griffonnés en marge des décisions officielles », Genèses, n° 72, 2008, p. 26-41.
• « 1974 et la fermeture des frontières. Analyse critique d’une décision érigée en turning-point », Politix. Revue des sciences sociales du politique, vol. 21, n° 82, 2008, p. 67-92
• « L’immigration une affaire d’Etats : conversion des regards sur les migrations algériennes », Cultures et Conflits, n° 67, 2008, p. 33-53.
• « La noblesse d’Etat à l’épreuve de l’Algérie et de l’après 1962 », Politix. Revue des sciences sociales du politique, vol. 19, n° 76, 2006, p. 75-96.
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• « Les politiques publiques d’immigration », in Antonin Cohen, Bernard Lacroix et Philippe Riutort (dir.), Nouveau manuel de science politique, Paris, La Découverte, 2009, p. 329-332.
• « Dérogations et 'machine de l'exception'. L'après 1974 dans les couloirs des ministères », Hommes et Migrations, 2020, n° 1330, p. 13-30.
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• "Date pilier 1973" in Romain Bertrand et Patrick Boucheron (dir.), Faire Musée d'une histoire commune, Paris, Seuil, 2020,
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Racism &
extreme-right
Since 2002
Since 2002, I have published several articles and contributions on racism and the far right:
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•S. Laurens, "The National Front isn't dead", Jacobin, Mai 2017.
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• S. Laurens, « Le Club de l’horloge et la haute administration : promouvoir l’hostilité à l’immigration dans l’entre-soi mondain », Revue Agone, Histoire, politique et sociologie, 2014, n° 54, pp. 73-93.
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• S. Laurens, « Le racisme : un attribut du populaire ? », Plein Droit, Juillet 2006, p. 13-21.
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• Sylvain Laurens et Romain Bertrand. « Les salaires de la peur. Métiers et dividendes de l’expertise des risques », introduction et coordination du dossier Savoir / Agir n° 9, 2009, p. 9-12.
• « Le ministère symptôme : retour sur quarante ans de bégaiement au sein de l’Etat français », Savoir / Agir, n°2, déc. 2007, p. 21-30.
• Avec Jérôme Berthaut et Eric Darras. « Pourquoi les faits-divers stigmatisent-ils ? L’hypothèse de la discrimination indirecte », Réseaux, n° 157-158 (« Pratiques journalistiques), 2009, p. 89-125.
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