Habitus and its Discontents: Socialization of Black Leftist Organizers in France

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Racing Europe

Abstract

This paper is a critical intervention on the sociological notion of habitus (Bourdieu 1977) by examining how Blackness shaped Black organizers socialization in France. I will deploy a mixed method comparison between organizers from Black leftist group, and their white counterpart using interviews I conducted with Black organizers. If it is true that both demographics had a dual-class socialization I am arguing that the Black organizers ‘dual-class socialization, which produced a polarized habitus, is predicated on a manifestation of the afterlife of the plantation (of French colonies), where the French Republic is a reenactment of the slavery/colonial representation of white male plantation owners as "the real and symbolic fathers of the subaltern races in the colony."(Garraway 2005) In this setting, Black families exist entrapped in the function of the captive maternal (James 2016).

 

Author

• Fania Noël, CUNY - Graduate Center