Catherine Raissiguier – författare

This book traces the experiences of young French and Algerian women students in a Parisian vocational school-how they negotiate their class, gender, and ethnic/racial identities in relation to school, family, romance, and future work in a changing and unpromising economy. Drawn from classroom observations and personal interviews, the book provides a theoretical framework for analyzing the complex network of cultural and historical discourses, limitations, and expectations that form the students' present lives and future outlook.The author links the micro and macro levels of her analysis by grounding her study in the nature of the French school, the discursive boundaries of French society, and the volatile French economy. The book contributes to an overall understanding of the processes of identity formation; class, race/ethnicity, and gender intersections; and women's responses to schooling and education.

Early one morning in 1996, the sanctuary of a Parisian church was suddenly disrupted by a police raid. A group of undocumented immigrant families had taken refuge in the church under threat of deportation due to the French state's increasingly restrictive immigration policies. Rather than disperse and hide, these sans-papiers—people literally without papers— came together to bring to light the deep contradictions in the French state's immigration policies and practices. Reinventing the Republic chronicles the struggle of the sans-papiers to become rights-bearing citizens, and links different social movements to reveal the many ways in which concepts of citizenship and nationality intersect with debates over gender, sexuality, and immigration. Drawing on in-depth interviews and a variety of texts, this disquieting book provides new insights into how exclusion and discrimination operate and influence each other in the world today.