Date of Award

Spring 5-16-2020

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Advisor(s)

Kari Evanson, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Caley Johnson

Abstract

The following thesis will revolve around the current identity crisis experienced by North-African communities in France. The French nation has witnessed a divide between the native citizens and the naturalized, immigrant population, who has felt excluded from the privileges that the French identity offers. The object of the thesis will be directed at finding the source of the identity crisis, specifically by focusing on the immigrants’ economically vulnerable living conditions, in the poor suburban areas of France. To answer the question of how the socio-economic conditions of the suburbs have created the ground for the identity crisis, the thesis will evaluate the type of housing, education, and career opportunities these immigrants are subjected to. The evaluation of these factors will bring light to the inherent disparities faced by North-African communities, which ultimately generate feelings of exclusion, and of not-belonging. The analysis will also reveal the stereotypes generated by the precarious neighborhoods, which in turn constrain immigrants to the prescribed identity of the poor, uneducated, foreign, criminal. Unable to belong, nor to be perceived as part of the national fabric, immigrants will experience a crisis in the midst of attempting to construct a sense of self. The thesis will thus examine the implications of these injustices, in the context of the values of the French Republic, which allegedly promise equal treatment to all citizens regardless of origin and religion.

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