Animating Immigration
Labor Movements, Cultural Policy, and Activist Theatre in 1970s France
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4932585 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emine Fisek (0000-0001-7153-2635, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-57 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theatre Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0192-2882 • E-ISSN: 1086-332X |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tj.2012.0007 |
| OpenAlex | W2011814883 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
This essay highlights the work of Paris-based Arab-French theatre troupes Al Assifa and La Kahina in order to address a number of dynamics that structured 1970s theatre activism concerning questions of immigration in France. Founded by a group of North African and French laborers, Al Assifa performed sketches on immigrant workers' experiences in France, while La Kahina gathered a mostly second-generation North African community to comment on Algerian women's lives and rectify the gender bias that plagued immigration politics. Examined in unison, the troupes' work reflects not only the qualities of an era that witnessed the sedimentation of immigration in French public consciousness as a permanent phenomenon, but the unique ability of theatrical practice to lay bare the contradictions of social reform on immigration. The essay places Al Assifa and La Kahina within the context of 1970s immigration politics in France and charts a number of themes that plagued both the politics and aesthetics of immigration: the difficulty of representing racial and ethnic difference in public spaces, the contradictions associated with claiming cultural militancy in a national context, where "culture" is a matter of public administration, and the endeavor to position immigrant public expression outside of the rapidly shifting categories made available by both official and civic bodies
Context (archaeology · Immigration · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · North African History and Literature · Political and Social Issues
| Highly cited | No |
|---|