Sociologie

This study uses the experiences of ‘post-socialist’ Chinese workers to reinterpret the long-standing idea of relations of oppression and domination surrounding migrant domestic workers. My research compares the experiences of female Chaoxianzu (Korean-Chinese) migrant domestic workers who migrated globally from the Three Northeast Provinces of China following economic reform in 1978, specifically focusing on cases of domestic migration within China and internationally to South Korea and France. This research uses a biographical approach to their labour and focuses on how they understood relations of oppression and domination given their a priori socialist consciousness, defined in terms of class, gender and ethnicity. This study in particular highlights the need to rethink the idea of class decline within the care chain–whereby the subordinate position of migrant domestic workers is taken as inevitable–and thus calls into question the binding ‘chain’ aspect of the care chain.

For a number of years, integration contracts have been implemented in Europe and in North America. With a view to challenging multiculturalism, the goal of these contracts is to ensure that migrants comply, even subscribe, to the non-negotiable values of the host societies. This article addresses the issue of the accommodation and integration contract tried out in France in 2003 and made mandatory in 2007, with a particular focus on the public discussions surrounding its creation as well as its most recent tinkering. After clarifying the political background to its implemen- tation and presenting the clause itself, the author demonstrates how the matter of women constitutes one of the specific issues addressed in the contract. Indeed, the public discussions of the integration contract articulate the reference to non- negotiable values of the Republic while giving central importance to gender equa- lity. This value refers to a universal equality standard, in which, however, equality of the sexes is translated as a cultural norm specific to the French nation. This translation is reinforced by the quasi-systematic reference to polygamy, genital mutilation, forced marriages, and the burqa. The author stresses the limitations of such a usage of the “women’s cause”—it may play a significant role in some- what stigmatizing migrants and may sometimes be used to justify increasingly restric- tive immigration policies.

Hachimi Alaoui Myriam, Jarvin Magdalena, 2007, « Les usages des cafés lycéens. Entre discussions intimes et exposition de soi », in Breviglieri Marc, Cicchelli Vincenzo (dir.), 2007, Adolescences méditerranéennes. L’espace public à « petits pas », L'Harmattan, Paris.