Les cafés kabyles de Belleville

Kabyle «cafés» at belleville : between tradition and innovation This article accounts for the transformation of Belleville «bars» since the operations of urban renovation which have deeply modified the aspect of the district and its social structure. Nearly all these shops are kept by Kabyle people but they cannot be considered as «ethnic businesses» : neither the patrons nor the products offered ; neither the signs nor the decoration are specific. Very different in that from the Kabyle «hotel-cafés» of the 50s and the 60s, these shops are the only public places where, at some moments, the old and new inhabitants of different social status and origin can mix with each other. Some of them have become cultural places of festivity, turning the «café» into the last local leisure centre when all the cinemas and concert-halls which made the reputation of the district have disappeared from Belleville. These changes most often happened on the initiative of the owner's sons, the salaried employees of their fathers and holders of some cultural wealth. These young people thus resisted professional deskilling and were able to attract and to keep a new population in the district, with more qualifications than the older one and combining praise for multicultural awareness and the glorification of Belleville's tradition. This survey is the result of field work founded on observation and the selection of interviews which lasted for two years, from 1996 to 1998

Population · Praise · Reputation · Social science · Sociology · Demography · Gender Studies · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · Political and Social Issues · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Portrait d'un bistrot des faubourgs

  Anne Steiner, Sylvaine Conord•Ethnologie française•2012

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