Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Cultural Politics of Immigrant Health Among West African Households in Paris, France

自20世纪70年代以来，法国推行了越来越严格的针对“可见”（非欧洲）人口的移民政策，特别是那些来自西非和北非的人口。据报告，对这些移民人口的管理是由国家资助的机构进行的，特别是通过提供社会和保健服务。在Carolyn Sargent博士的指导下，研究生Stephanie Larchanche-Kim将调查法国移民政治与西非移民家庭在巴黎谈判国家机构（特别是社会福利和公共卫生系统）所采用的策略之间的相互作用。通过参与观察、档案研究和结构化访谈，研究人员将分析国家资助的社会工作者和公共卫生从业人员（社会助理、民族精神病学专家、“文化”调解员和学校心理学家）在国家政策和西非移民社区方面的培训、方法、目标和地位。目的是评估州工作人员有效参与推动州有关移民的政治议程的程度。通过参与观察、深度访谈和生活史收集，研究人员还将调查西非家庭在获得国家资助服务方面的目标。目标是确定他们与国家资助机构合作的战略，而不是与非正式基层协会和西非仪式专家提供的其他社会和卫生支持来源合作的战略。该项目有助于从人类学角度理解国家、地方机构和生活经验之间的关系，也有助于从人类学角度分析个人如何维护代理和协商结构约束。通过记录移民社会和健康困境的精确细节，这项研究还将阐明旨在减少现有社会和健康不平等的有效政策的方向。

Since the 1970s, France has promoted increasingly restrictive immigration policies targeting "visible" (non-European) populations, especially those of West and North African origin. Regulation of these immigrant populations has been reported to be carried out by state-sponsored institutions, notably through the provision of social and health services. Under the supervision of Dr. Carolyn Sargent, graduate student Stephanie Larchanche-Kim will investigate the interaction between France's immigration politics and the strategies employed by West African immigrant households in Paris to negotiate state institutions, in particular, the social welfare and public health systems. Through participant observation, archival research, and structured interviews, the researcher will analyze the training, methods, objectives, and position of state-sponsored social workers and public health practitioners (assistantes sociales, ethnopsychiatry specialists, "cultural" mediators, and school psychologists) with respect to state policy and to the West African immigrant community. The objective is to assess the extent to which state workers effectively engage in promoting state political agendas on immigration. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and the collection of life histories, the researcher will also investigate West African households' objectives in accessing state-sponsored services. The goal is to determine their strategies for engaging with state-sponsored institutions, rather than with alternative sources of social and health support offered by informal grassroots associations and West African ritual specialists. This project contributes to the anthropological understanding of relations between the state, local institutions, and lived experience, as well as to anthropological analyses of how individuals assert agency and negotiate structural constraints. By documenting precise details of migrants' social and health dilemmas, the research will also clarify directions for effective policy designed to reduce existing social and health inequalities.