Children in decolonisation: forced migrations and individual construction (France – 1945-1980) – EN-MIG

The EN-MIG project focuses on the forced migrations of children from different parts of the collapsing French colonial empire, first and foremost in Indochina, Algeria, Madagascar, but also Africa and areas that had been decolonised without achieving independence (like the overseas territories). This project takes into account the great diversity of these migrations, of which many were presented as "repatriations". Children were displaced with their families or parents, only with their siblings, or even alone and unaccompanied. The obligation to migrate originated with the French government and/or other actors more or less working with its support. Some groups of children were taken into the care of organisations, some were hosted in suitable centres or preexisting structures, and still others were placed in host families or even put up for adoption in France.
EN-MIG aims to understand the individual motivations for integration into the host society among the children and young people who had been uprooted during a moment of crisis. To do this, it historically analyses the effects of postcolonial biopolitics on the personal growth of the child victims of forced migration. Using the preparatory work of three partner research laboratories (TEMOS at the Université d’Angers, ISP at the Université Paris-Nanterre, IMAf at the Aix-Marseille Université), the hypothesis underpinning this research is that the personal growth of child victims of forced migration resulted from connections between the relationships to surroundings and environment (such as policies of racialisation, organisation of care, and the location and type of accomodations), relationships with other people (such as families, parents, siblings, and religious or secular educators) and relationship to identity (such as race, gender, country of origin, climate and food, language and culture, name changes, or a family which remained in the home country). The three main research themes are: 1. The postcolonial nature of the displacements of mixed-race children. 2. Family relationships under the strain of forced migration under decolonisation. 3. Integration and subjective construction of displaced children. A transversal theme will focus on name changes (renaming) as a subjective process of reconstructing the displaced children. Thus, EN-MIG is situated at the junctions of several research fields that have already been widely studied separately (youth and empire-building, children and war, and migrations), but would need more extensive study of how they intersect.
EN-MIG's main methodological choice is to propose a history based on the firsthand accounts of the children and young people directly concerned, as well as the accounts produced as they got older. It is a matter of doing history that is close to the ground, or more precisely history at the level of children, who are the main protagonists of this story. In order to do this, great importance will be accorded to their voices and stories, whether told during childhood or later during adulthood. This priority entails collaborative interactions between researchers and actors/witnesses: interviews, participatory observation, writing workshops, and photographs. Indeed, those directly concerned have high expectations in historical knowledge in order to understand what they were forced to undergo. Placing their personal life experiences in the larger historical context helps them to better understand their own history. Apart from academic publications, the results of this research will be displayed in various ways (such as videos, virtual exhibitions, and school sessions). EN-MIG will also help to enrich and deepen understanding of current migrations of children, accompanied or not.