Political Participation of Asian Migrants and their Descendants in France – PolAsie

The team is composed of sociologists, demographers and political scientists. It is built on the complementarity between researchers specialised in Asian migrations and mobilisation and researchers specialised in discrimination and political participation in France.
All the different survey, either with a qualitative or quantitative approach, will be designed together and most of the investigations will be conducted in a selection of 8 cities and districts in the Paris area.

The project is organised around three objectives:
1. The elected representatives with Asian migration background. The study of voting practices and political careers will document the reality of a “vote communautaire”, of community political adherence. It will also interrogate the role of elected representatives and whether they contribute to provide a substantive representation for this minority group (les élus de la diversité).

2. Local citizenship and diversity policies. This strand of research will document local and grassroots forms of collective action with a special focus on recent examples of violence targeting Asians. It will explore initiatives of dialogue, cooperation and confrontation with local authorities as well as within the Asian communities (solidarity and competition among organisations, social, generational and gender divisions). It will also pay attention to potential diplomatic interventions from countries of origin and their acceptation by diasporic groups.

3. Political cultures and political socialisation: pre and post-migration. The project will study the forms of adherence to political systems (from liberal democracies to authoritarian regimes) taking into account complex process of political socialisation: in the country of origin before migration, in the country of residence after migration, as well as within the diasporic networks.

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In France, Asian migrants and their descendants’ political visibility is an emerging phenomenon. From when Chinese residents first demonstrated in Paris (Belleville district) in 2010, until the rally organised in September 2016 to denounce violence targeting Asians (Chuang 2017), their visibility has increased and this process of politicisation is noteable. The PolAsie project plans to investigate the specificity of French Asians’ political participation through different domains (voting practices, participation in political campaigns, trajectories of Asian elected representatives, political mobilisations and collective action at local level, etc). It also aims at analysing these political practices by evaluating the processes of political socialisation before migration, after migration and within the diasporic groups.

PolAsie aims to explore the three-following hypotheses: 1) The Asian population in France, migrants and their descendants, is undergoing a generation turn which is transforming its political participation and its sense of belonging (both as French and Asian). 2) Recent collective actions by Asians in France against violence and discrimination are fostering more classical forms of political participation at local and national levels (participation in local councils, voting practices, party’s membership and participation in political campaigns, etc.) 3) As a material and symbolic resource, the Chinese (and more generally the Asian) growing economic power and its strategy to promote an alternate model to liberal democracies plays a role in the immigrants’ process of political socialisation. However, these experiences do not exclude other forms of learning and adherence to citizens’ practices observed in the country of residence.

To explore these hypotheses, the project is organised around three objectives. 1) Voters and elected representatives. The study of voting practices and political careers will document the reality of a“vote communautaire”, of community political adherence. It will also interrogate the role of elected representatives and whether they contribute to provide a substantive representation for this minority group (les élus de la diversité). 2) Local citizenship and dialogue with local authorities. This strand of research will document local and grassroots forms of collective action with a special focus on recent examples of violence targeting Asians. It will explore initiatives of dialogue, cooperation and confrontation with local authorities as well as within the Asian communities (solidarity and competition among organisations, social, generational and gender divisions). It will also pay attention to potential diplomatic interventions from countries of origin and their acceptation by diasporic groups.3) Pre-migration, post-migration, and diasporic political socialisation. The project will study the forms of adherence to political systems (from liberal democracies to authoritarian regimes) taking into account complex process of political socialisation: in the country of origin before migration, in the country of residence after migration, as well as within the diasporic networks.

The team is composed of sociologists, demographers and political scientists. It is built on the complementarity between researchers specialised in Asian migrations and mobilisation and researchers specialised in discrimination and political participation in France. The project is based on a multi-site survey and mixed-methods: quantitative and qualitative surveys will be conducted in the same selected sites in the Parisian area. The unity of the sites will fuel cooperation on the field among the researchers and it will allow the crossed analysis of the data.