helene.lebail
Hélène Le Bail
Phone: +33158717083 - helene.lebail@sciencespo.frHélène Le Bail is a research fellow at CERI since 2015. She has a doctorate in political science from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and a master degree in Chinese studies from INALCO (National Institute for Eastern Languages and Cultures). She spent many years in Japan as a Ph.D student (Hitotsubashi University), as a post-doc (Waseda University), and as a research fellow for the French research center on contemporary Japan, Maison franco-japonaise (Nichifutsu kaikan), Tokyo. She was an invited professor at Kobe University (2019) and at Dôshisha University (2023-24).
Her research focuses on Asian migrations and minorities (in Japan and France) and on migration policies in a comparative approach. Special focus is made on female routes of migration (marriage, reproductive labour, sex work) and on mobilization, collective actions and political participation of migrants and their descendants.
Ongoing research projects
• Principal investigator, PolAsie, Political Participation of Asian Migrants and their Descendants in France, 2020-2024, funded by ANR and the Institut Convergences Migrations. See the blog PolAsie
• Co-investigator, Assessing the criminalization of procuring in France, funded by LIEPP Sciences Po.
• Co-investigator, Sciences Po Transatlantic Research Fund project “Asian Minorities in Europe and in North America: A transatlantic dialogue on memories, representations, and recognition”, with Ya-Han Chuang and Khatharya Um, 2023.
• Co-investigator, Columbia/Alliance joint project, Anti-Asian Hate Compared: Origins, Patterns, and Responses in the US and France, with Ya-Han Chuang and Jennifer Lee, 2022-2024.
• Co-coordinator, Rethinking the Nexus Migration and Sex Work trafficking. 移住性取引再考―グローバル化の苦痛の軽減をめざす調査, projet JSPS coordinated by Kaoru Aoyama, université de Kobe, 2019-2023.
• Member of the project PACE, The Politics of Migration and Asylum Crises in Europe, ANR project, coordinated by Hélène Thiollet, 2019-2023.
Former projects :
• Co-invstigator, Cooperation grant UC Berkeley-Sciences Po. Diasporic identities: Southeast Asian incorporation experiences in Europe and America. The post-refugee generations with Khatharya Um (Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley) 2018-2020.
• Co-investigator, project Emergence(s) de la Ville de Paris Chinois.es en (Ile de) France : identifications et identités en mutations, 2018-2020.
Academic associations
Fellow of the Institut Convergence des Migrations
Associated researcher, PRIME, Meiji Gakuin University, 明治学院大学 国際平和研究所, Tokyo.
Associated researcher, PROMIS, Kobe University, 国際文化学研究推進センターは国 際文化学研究推進インスティテュート.
Associated researcher, IFRAE (Institut français de recherche sur l'Asie de l'Est), projet Migrations de l’Asie de l’Est, INALCO, Paris.
Other academic activities
Editorial committee Migrations Société
Editorial committee Cipango. Cahiers d’études japonaises
Editorial Board, Journal of Chinese Overseas
AFSP (French Association for Political Science), co-organizer of the research group Migration, politisation, mobilisation
Streering committee of Présage, Sciences Po's Gender Studies programme
Co-organizer of CERI-Sciences Po's research seminars : PopAsie, Migrations et Mobilités and the collective MiDi, Migration et Diversité
Research group Populations Japonaises
Advisory board for the ERC project « SEXHUM : Migration, sex work and trafficking »
-
Languages
Japanese, Chinese
[avec Khatharya UM] Générations post-réfugiées. Les descendants de réfugiés d’Asie du Sud-Est en France, Tours, Presses universitaires François Rabelais, 2023.
[avec Ya-Han Chuang] "Faire reconnaître le racisme anti-Asiatiques : la construction d’un problème public par la voie judiciaire", Marronnages, 2022, vol. 1, n°1, pp.32-54.
[avec Calogero Giametta] "The national and moral borders of the 2016 French law on sex work: An analysis of the ‘prostitution exit programme’", Critical Social Policy, 2022.
[avec Marylène Lieber] "Aren’t Sex Workers Women? Ladies, Sex Workers and the Contrasting Definitions of Safety and Violence", ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 2021, Vol. 20, n°3, pp.241-256.
[avec Juan Du, Florence Lévy et Li Zhipeng] "Le paradoxe de l’invisibilité d’une minorité visible : immigrés et descendants d’immigrés chinois en France", Migrations Société, 2021, n°183, pp.19-28.
"Actions culturelles engagées : discours et mobilisations contre le « racisme anti-asiatique » en France", Migrations Société, 2021, n°183, pp.47-64.
[direction avec Ya-Han Chuang et Aurore Merle] Chinese Xin Yimin and Their Descendants in France: Claiming Belonging and Challenging the Host Country’s Integration Model, Journal of Chinese Overseas, 2020, Vol. 16, n°2.
[avec Ya-Han Chuang] "How marginality leads to inclusion: insights from mobilizations of Chinese female migrants in Paris", Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2019.
"Les migrations par le mariage : épouses souhaitées mais stigmatisées : État de la littérature abordant la question sous l’angle du travail reproductif et de la menace : focus sur l’Asie de l’Est", Cahiers du genre, 2018, n°64, pp.19-43.
"Cross-border Marriages as a Side Door for Paid and Unpaid Migrant Workers. The Case of Marriage Migration between China and Japan", Critical Asian Studies, 2017, Vol. 49, n°2, pp.226-243.
"Migrants chinois au Japon après le séisme du 11 mars 2011. Repenser sa mobilité et son enracinement dans une situation de catastrophe", Migrations Société, 2013, Vol. 25, N°149, pp.123-136.
Migrants chinois hautement qualifiés : le cas du Japon, Paris, Les Indes savantes, 2012, 229 p.
