Camille Hamidi
Lecturer and Researcher, Department of Political Science,
Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines (France)

"Voluntary Associations and Politics:
The Case of Young North African
Immigrants in France"

Tuesday, 13 April 2004
4:00 p.m.
336 Ingraham

Sponsored by The Center for European Studies Link to CES website

How do immigrants become incorporated in a democratic polity? Some scholars and policy makers would point to civil society, saying that participating in voluntary associations connects people to the wider society. But when immigrants do get involved in civic groups, the groups often are specifically for immigrants like themselves. Do these groups also work the way that theorists imagine voluntary associations working? To ask this and other urgent political questions, Camille Hamidi presents an intimate ethnographic examination of immigrant youth groups in suburbs of Paris, comparing groups composed of mixed ethnicities with those that are more homogeneous; and groups that are specifically devoted to ethnic matters with those that are not, and those that are all women with those that are mixed.