Country of residence

France

Brief introduction

PhD Candidate, Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre La Défense. Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de sociologie comparative (LESC)

Education

PhD, Anthropology, 2015, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Academic profile

My PhD research focuses on a Romanian Roma community settled in Montreuil, a city of Parisian suburbs. For these Roma migrants, the links to their village are still very strong, but due to the economical context of the area, the village is now only “a place for holydays”, where they “eat” in few weeks the money earned in foreign countries, mostly in building or  modernizing houses. My thesis focuses on the migration process and the representations of social success: I analyze how kinship-relationships, economic strategies, keeping links to their Romanian village through the house building, are related and organised to build their migration projects. Because of this intricate subject, I chose to study the migration process through housing practices, both in France and in Romania. By looking at what is going on inside the houses, I can have an overview on kinship, on economy, human and material exchanges between France and Romania In the context of the reemergence of slums, due in part to the new European economic migrations, the Roma families have been  re-housed by the City Hall in a program that takes place in a broader will to fight the “unhealthy dwelling” (habitat insalubre). If my thesis focuses on the migration process, it is also related to housing and inhabitants practices, mostly because the Roma I’m studying spend most of their time living in this “social housing” (logement social) project, in which they have to adapt to constraining spaces.

Publications

• 2009 « L’aménagement de la précarité. Pratiques d’habitat collectif chez des Roms roumains de Montreuil » (« Fitting-out precariousness. Collective housing practices among Romanian Roma of Montreuil”), published in Roms de Roumanie, la diversité méconnue, Etudes Tsiganes Review, n°38, pp.178-189.
• 2011, “Bricoler l'hospitalité publique: réflexions autour du relogement des Roms roumains à Montreuil” (Tinkering public hospitality: considerations about the rehousing of Romanian romas in Montreuil), Géocarrefour 86-1/2011, Roms migrants en ville: pratiques et politiques en Italie et en France, pp.55-65.

Keywords

Anthropology of space, Roma mobilities, housing practices, migration, material culture

Contact

Norah.ben@gmail.com browse members list