OSC Scientific Seminar 2020-2021

Friday 11th June 2021, 11:30 / 13:00 am (Zoom videoconference)

A contentious category: ethnoracial self-identification in a colorblind France

Patrick Simon
Directeur de recherche, INED

Unité Migrations internationales et Minorités

Recent controversies about the use of the concepts of race, racialization, institutional racism, etc in social science and antiracist activism are echoing recurring so-called ethnic statistics controversies in France. Indeed, studying race is contentious in the French context, and especially in quantitative studies. The first article of the Constitution has been recently revised to delete reference to race as an illegitimate distinction in laws and policies. Beyond the legal and political framing, what consequences produces this reinforcement of colorblindness in social representations and interactions. Instances of racialization in social life have not been curtailed by the colorblind framing, even though it is plausible that such framing has an impact on the forms and intensity of racial tropes in colorblind vs race-conscious societies.

To contribute to this research agenda, our paper, written with Haley McAvay, will take stock of questions about ethnoracial identification in an handful of surveys in France, namely the "Mesure de la diversité" survey (Ined, 2006),  "Perceptions et expériences des discriminations en Ile-de-France" (ARDIS/INED, 2015) and "Accès aux droits" (DDD, 2016).

After a quick overview of the issues with ethnoracial statistics in France, I will discuss the answers to self and third party identifications in ethnoracial classification in these surveys. The refusals to self-identified are collected via different items, from the usual non response to a "I don't fit in" opt out version or non expected answers like "Human", "Citizen of the world", etc. These answers vary consistently across ethnicity and race, other socio-demographic profiles and social experiences including discrimination. These answers document indirectly a state of the art of the racialization processes in France and the different ways to cope with them.

Registration is mandatory to join the ZOOM meeting (the link will be sent one day before).