Discreet empowerment: Race- and gender-separated participatory mechanisms in French working-class neighbourhoods

ABSTRACT

This article examines the possibilities of implementing race- and gender-separated organisational models within institutional participatory mechanisms in the light of the concept of discretion. Based on an investigation carried out within a participatory mechanism in a French working-class neighbourhood, the text shows how discretion allows the existence of a homogeneous public in terms of gender and race, despite the French colourblind political context marked by the valorisation of the norm of ‘social mix’. The article highlights the effects of this discreet non-mixed organisation both in terms of individual empowerment processes for the participants and in terms of the acknowledgment of this group as a legitimate audience by local institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Discretion
• race- and gender-separated organisation
• participation
• social centres
• working-class neighbourhood
• empowerment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I would like to thank the coordinators of the special issue, Julien Talpin and Ivan Sainsaulieu, the reviewers and Richard Nice for their thoughtful reading of my work.

2 In recent years, for example a workshop organised by a trade union in the Paris area dedicated to a specific racial group, or the creation of spaces reserved for racialised women at an Afrofeminist festival, have been the object of fierce criticisms (and even threats to dissolve collectives) from the political class. See ‘Les ateliers “en non-mixité raciale” du syndicat SUD-Education 93 créent une polémique’, Le Monde.fr, 21 November 2017. https://www.lemonde.fr/education/article/2017/11/21/des-formations-du-syndicat-sud-education-93-en-non-mixite-raciale-creent-la-polemique_5217834_1473685.html and ‘Anne Hidalgo demande l’annulation d’un festival en partie réservé aux femmes noires’, Le Monde.fr, 28 May 2017. https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/05/28/anne-hidalgo-demande-l-annulation-d-un-festival-en-partie-interdit-aux-blancs_5135073_3224.html.

3 In the absence of official ethnic statistics in France, this figure should be read with caution as it does not reflect the reality of the ethnoracial composition of the territories. Individuals of French nationality belonging to ethnoracial minorities are not counted in those figures.

4 In this article, I use the term ‘care’ to refer to the care and support activities (social, emotional) undertaken by women. Theories of care do not consider these activities inherent to the nature of women but rather re-situate them in the socio-historical circumstances that have led women and men to develop differentiated knowledge and skills (Gilligan, 1993; Paperman & Laugier, 2005). From this perspective, I will question the essentialisation or, conversely, the visibilisation of this work, as well as the possibilities of politicisation.