Contenu du sommaire : Expériences de l'État

Based on a comparative ethnography of the work of civil registrars in two French local offices, this article seeks to understand how the criteria for suspicion of people trying to 'act as a family' are established from the point of view of the state. In 2005 and 2019, two implementing circulars relating to the fight against marriages of convenience and false declarations of parenthood were drawn up to reinforce control measures, particularly for undocumented and/or socially precarious persons. These directives delegate to lower-ranking municipal officers the task of assessing the sincerity of couples and parents who turn up at the register's desk. The intersectional approach shows how the criteria for suspicion are shaped by the context of interaction. Not only is the assessment of 'dubious' cases based on the biographical experiences of civil officers and their social position in terms of gender, class and race; it is also shaped at the level of municipal administrations and elected representatives, who more or less adopt a political or administrative approach to families.

This article analyzes the gender of administrative burden using the case of child grants programs in Namibia. Drawing on a study using interviews, observations and archives, conducted between 2019 and 2021, the article shows that access to benefits and the experience of administrative procedures are shaped by intersectional social relations. On one hand, many women who apply for benefits are excluded because of an administrative burden caused by the inadequacy between the design of administrative procedures and the situation of African working-class families. On the other hand, the evaluation and selection practices of administrative agents towards applicants are structured by gender, class and race. However, gender can also be a resource for some of them in claiming their right to benefits.

This article examines how gender shapes use of the state, based on an ethnographic study conducted among users of a free legal advice service provided by the Inspection du travail (French labor inspection), among which a majority are working-class private sector employees. It shows, firstly, that the timing of access to the state and how the service is used differ depending on the gender of the employees who use it and, secondly, that the service itself amplifies the differences between women and men in the way they exercise their labour rights.

Since the emergence of integration policies, directing people towards the labor market has become an increasingly central objective. Contributing to the deterioration of workers' conditions and the development of a sort of injunction to 'get to work', this trend towards 'activation' can undermine the integrative aspect of this field of public action. The aim of this article is to understand these effects based on the experience of employees included in the Insertion par l'Activité Économique (integration through work) program. This approach, which focuses on the reception of public action from an intersectional perspective, provides an insight into the ambivalence that characterizes how beneficiaries relate to the program. The tension between the integrative role of integration policies and how they degrade people's skills is expressed in different ways, depending on how these beneficiaries of integration policies identify in terms of class, gender and race.

The issue of police-population relations, which receives a great deal of media and political attention in France, is a fertile field for research. This article examines the ways in which youths, across a wide range of sociological backgrounds, construct representations of the police. Using an intersectional perspective, the aim is to analyze how contact with police forces influences youths' perceptions of this public service and, by extension, of the state. The study confirms the key role played by identity checks in the process of socialization with the police and its officers, particularly among young, racialized boys who are the main targets of ID checks. It also highlights the impact of solicited contacts and indirect experiences reported by friends and family, particularly among young girls, in dealing with gender-based and sexual violence.

Based on complaints lodged with the defender of rights for “discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation”, this article looks at the discourse used by claimants to introduce themselves, and the impact of this discourse on the investigation of complaints by the institution's officers. Using quantitative and qualitative data, the article shows how the social attributes of claimants - in particular their gender and racial positions - influence the judicial process of recognizing homophobia. The analysis of accounts of experiences of homophobia also shows that the ability to discursively formalize a homophobic act with a view to having it recognized under the terms of the law tends to be found among people in higher positions on the social ladder. The judicialization of homophobia thus produces an ideal-typical subject of sexual law, at the crossroads of social relations based on class, gender and race.

This article examines the struggle led at the end of the 2000s by a Paris-based group campaigning for the legalization of undocumented women, based on the experiences of three Algerian and Moroccan women activists from working-class and middle-class urban backgrounds. The fact that the group was founded by activists with a high level of cultural and social capitals contributed to its ability to position itself favorably in the sphere of activism and in the fight for the legalization of undocumented women through work. The new agenda for gender equality initiated in the 1960s contributed to the consolidation of the figure of the undocumented woman worker, as did the emergence of the figure of the housemaid at an international level. Shaped by political context and opportunities, the trajectories of female activists also depend on their dispositions, the structure of activist organizations and the social profile of their leadership. Faced with the marginalization caused by not having a residence permit in France, the group provided the activists who had the highest levels of cultural capital with "channels of mobility" to move up the social ladder and secure a leadership position in the group. In line with the invisibilized domestic work carried out by the women we spoke to in their professional lives, the campaigning work they do is still subject to a gendered hierarchy that reassigns women to less valued care work. Those with lower levels of social and cultural capital occupy minority positions within the group. Ultimately, the unprecedented nature of the obtained collective legalization reveals the heterogeneity behind the figure of the "undocumented worker" and the acute forms of domination at the intersection of class, gender and race that characterize the trajectories of undocumented women.

Based on a study of interviews with heterosexual parents of schoolchildren in France and Switzerland, this article describes the mechanisms that perpetuated the gendered approach to schoolwork during the spring 2020 lockdown. It first confirms that women continued to take primary responsibility for schoolwork, regardless of their availability or that of their partner. It then looks at the way in which fathers justified staying away from schoolwork, while seeing their occasional help recognized. Finally, it shows the particular social characteristics of the few fathers who became involved in schoolwork over the period.