Two names and many borders

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Published 14-10-2024
Stefan Le Courant

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research, this article recounts a case where the link between identities and borders are intertwined and mutually complicated. It shows how borders are not only sites where identities are controlled, but also spaces for the creation of identities whose future is uncertain. The text follows the trajectory of a young man from Mali who arrives in France and fails to obtain a residence permit. The administrative irregularity leads him to generate and inhabit a new identity that affects his everyday life, beyond the merely bureaucratic sphere. Ultimately, behind the issue of names and papers, what is constantly at stake for this young man is the tangible and omnipresent nature of the border. A border that complicates (his) life and, in a way, prevents him from being.

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Keywords

borders, identitites, administrative irregularity

References
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Section
Single Topic Issues