The Minority Paradox. Blackness in France

Monday 27 October 2014
11:00  Centre for Humanity Research (CHR) Seminar Room, University of the Western Cape
Robert Sobukwe Road, Belville, 7535

Pap Ndiaye
Professor of History at Sciences Po Paris.

Many observers of French social and political life seem to have recently discovered the existence of Black populations in metropolitan France. On an individual level they may be visible, but as a social group and as a cognitive category, French Blacks don’t have much of an existence for social scientists as well as policy-makers. They have indeed been “invisible men and women”. My presentation will discuss the legitimacy of the notion of “French Blacks », which doesn’t fit neatly within the classic French Republican understanding of citizenship. I will also present a few data coming from the first quantitative study on French Blacks conducted in January of 2007, which I helped supervise, and discuss the notion of minoity paradox, aiming at conceptualizing the social situation of these populations.

Pap Ndiaye is Professor of history at Sciences Po Paris. He is specialized in US history and the political history of people of African descent. He has recently published La Condition noire. Essai sur une minorité française (2008), les Noirs Américains, en marche vers l’égalité (2009) and une Histoire de Chicago (2013).