A1 Journal article (refereed)
Race et espace : la ville comme lieu d’étude des représentations raciales (2022)

Sommier, M. (2022). Race et espace : la ville comme lieu d’étude des représentations raciales. Itineraires : Litterature, Textes, Cultures, (2021-3). https://doi.org/10.4000/itineraires.11795

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Sommier, Mélodine

Journal or series: Itineraires : Litterature, Textes, Cultures

ISSN: 2100-1340

eISSN: 2427-920X

Publication year: 2022

Publication date: 29/08/2022

Issue number: 2021-3

Publisher: L'Harmattan

Publication country: France

Publication language: French

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/itineraires.11795

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Open Access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/83362

Abstract

This study examines “racial landscapes” in the city center of Bordeaux (France), focusing on the way discourses about race and racism materialize in every day surroundings. Racial landscapes capture the contradictory nature of discourses on race and racism in Europe and in France: omnipresent yet concealed. Focusing on Bordeaux offers insights into the way local and national discourses are interwoven thereby shedding light on the complex relations between discourses on race, the country’s colonial past and the universalist republican framework (Mbembe 2005). This study therefore asks: Which discourses about race and racism are (re)produced and contested in Bordeaux? Visual and critical discourse analyses of photographs (N = 401) taken by the researcher in January and July 2020 were used to access the city as a “semiotic environment” (Amin & Thrift 2002) and discursive terrain. The findings reveal the connection between discourses on race and neoliberalism in areas of the city center where shops and restaurants using carefully marketed markers of exotic otherness abound. Furthermore, two competing discourses on diversity (diversity as cosmopolitanism and diversity as lived plurality) were identified in specific areas of the city center, which further revealed the intersection between race and class and the interplay with larger or older discourses.

Keywords: discourse; diversity; towns and cities; urban culture; urban environment; urban population; urban studies; races and breeds; white people

Free keywords: city; race; urban landscapes; whiteness; diversity; discourse

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2022

JUFO rating: 1