Contenu du sommaire : La mode des identités

Behind identity, the process of identification Since collective identity is a question of personalisation of a social formation by a process of transfer, it can only be discussed by analogy : national identity thus refers to a transhistoric person. The example of Lorraine demonstrates that identity varies. Identification is a result of interethnic relations ; it is an active and complex process (the case of mixed identities) which is part of belonging to immediate social relations while, at the same time, referring to an imaginary community (identification by collective projection). Three historical modes of community reference appear to predominate : genealogical identity (an imaginary kinship) ; the matrix of the mystical community and national identity which can be a Utopia or an ideology. At the moment, it is the predominance of national identity which triggers off the discrimination of Foreigners by a series of processes of ethnic identification, from that of the Foreigners whose nationality is recognised, to that of the non-nationals, the immigrants and those who are considered to be of a different species and therefore by definition unassimilable. This differentialism leads to racism. But is there not a risk of national identity being destroyed as a result of excesses and deterioration ?

Changes in « cultural identity » amongst political exiles On the basis of research on exiles from the southern part of Latin America, this article concurs with recent criticisms concerning the concept of cultural identity elaborated by French and American researchers. In effect, developments in the problematic of identity — as it is perceived by the exiles — demonstrate that identity is not a stable or unique entity but, instead, should be interpreted as a strategy which individuals and groups implement in keeping with their desires and interests and the constraints of the situation in which they find themselves.

The approximately 250 000 black Jews of the United States claim to be descended from black African Jewry, which dates back more than two millenia. In fact, black American Judaism appeared at the end of the 19th century, in the course of the great migration from the South to the North, as a radicalization of the biblical message of Exodus propagated by Protestantism. The first important communities date from 1915. The movement expands significantly in the 1960's. Religious practice becomes more orthodox at this time and an independent educational system arises. Despite the leading role they once played within the black community, black Jews distance themselves from black radicalism, without gaining full recognition by the white Jewish community. At present, * Black Hebrews », as they prefer to be called, have come to privilege the religious aspects of their identity. Marriage practices are one indication of such tendencies : marriages between black Jews and whites are on the increase ; the refusal to marry non-Jews is more and more the case. The tendency therefore is toward the integration of black Jews in the American Jewish community, which is in the process of accepting them.

Black British : social category or dual identity The term « Black British » is currently used in sociology and everyday practice to refer to the population of New Commonwealth and Pakistani origin. This was not always the case. Collective action by the communities concerned has imposed the use of Black British ». Class and ethnic differences may impose another terminology in the future.

Myths and strategies of dual identity The concept of « dual identity », erroneous because contradictory in terms, has only a biological reality. It is associated with concepts which make a reification of culture. However it has a real social efficiency in that it serves contradictory strategies, some of which aim at reinforcing the marginalisation of deprived social groups, in particular populations of immigrant origin, while other strategies implemented by these groups aim at opposing the depreciation of which they are the victims.

The Forbidden Family The population of the district of Sevrin in Amiens is highly marginal, lives outwith the sphere of waged work and does not incorporate the global social norms. We intend here to focus our attention on the practices and forms of representation at work at the level of the family. Observation reveals that this population feels strongly that the dominant family structures are inaccessible to them, as if these were the privilege of the upper classes. This prohibition of the family thus appears to be the constituent element in the production of the identity of the actors and to be integrated into the internal processes of inferiosiation of which they perceive themselves as being the victims.

The French « melting-pot » or the myth of gentle integration ! The Spanish Republicans Does identity play a determining role in the process of integration or non-integration of foreign populations or are factors other than those to which reference is usually made (hierarchy of identities and cultural « distance », times...) at work ? The example of the Spanish Republican refugees in France in 1939 could perhaps contribute some elements to the debate, as well as informing us about French identity at certain moments in history.

An anthropological approach to immigration and urban Space The impossibility for "single" immigrants to construct a social project, the types of integration chosen by those who have settled with their families, the production of multi-ethnic shopping areas and the function played by residential space in the identity process of the young "Beurs" are making a decisive contribution to the re-structuring of the French urban system. At the same time, urban space appears as a fundamental instrument in the production of social ranking and in the construction of the passage from the status of being dominated to that of being an active social agent.