Journée d’études « Mettre en récit la migration de soi et des siens » – 1er juin 2026 / Campus Condorcet

Mettre en récit la migration de soi et des siens
Narrating the Migrant Self

Journée d’étude internationale / International Workshop
1 er juin 2026 / June 1, 2026
Campus Condorcet
Paris-Aubervilliers
Centre des colloques ( Front-populaire)
Salle 100 (RDC)

Le 1 er juin 2026 se tiendra au Campus Condorcet une journée d’étude internationale intitulée “ Mettre en récit la migration de soi et des siens ”. Elle vise à ouvrir une réflexion pluridisciplinaire sur le statut, les formes et les évolutions de “l’écriture du soi migratoire”, en situant en premier lieu son collimateur sur le récit, contemporain ou rétrospectif, sur la migration de soi ou de sa famille par celles et ceux qui eux-mêmes enquêtent sur les migrations. Qui formule de tels récits, pour qui, quand, à quelles conditions ? Quelles différences le statut professionnel, le genre, la classe, l’origine font-elles à cette prise de parole réflexive (Piola, Muñoz García, 2025) ? Toutes les migrations sont-elles bonnes à dire ? Quel est le régime épistémologique de ces récits, leurs effets de connaissance, de dissimulation, de mystification ? Comment ces discours et leurs conditions de production ont-ils évolué historiquement, et pourquoi ? Les récits sur la migration personnelle ou familiale des chercheuses et chercheurs en études migratoires, jadis occultés, sont aujourd’hui souvent mis en avant (Gemignani et al. , 2024; Gerson, 2025), même si cette exhibition paradoxale de l’intime suscite en retour des réticences (Traverso, 2020). Un enjeu est de savoir si ces éléments réflexifs sur la migration ont quelque chose de spécifique par rapport aux autres retours sur soi biographiques des chercheur·se·s (v. pour l’histoire Popkin, 2005 ; Aurell, 2016 ; Lacoue-Labarthe, 2024). Ces écritures de soi doivent être mises en regard des productions littéraires et artistiques sur les racines migrantes et/ou étrangères de leurs auteur·rices ; brouillant la distinction entre fiction et non-fiction, ces récits disent aussi quelque chose des attentes morales et culturelles cristallisées dans un moi migrant qui se dévoile, endure et édifie. L’ensemble de ces narrations migratoires doivent également être confrontées, pour en saisir les différences et les biais spécifiques, aux discours formulés par les migrantes et les migrants des classes populaires, qui n’ont pas accès aux mêmes moyens de production et de diffusion. Cette journée fera dialoguer sur ce sujet des historiennes et historiens avec des spécialistes d’autres disciplines, telle que la sociologie et la psychologie, et des artistes.

This workshop aims to launch a collective, multidisciplinary reflection on the status, forms, and evolutions of “migration self-narratives.” The primary target will be contemporary or retrospective accounts of one’s own migration or that of one’s family, by those who themselves investigate migration. Who writes such accounts, for whom, when, under what conditions? How do professional status, gender, class, and origin affect this reflexive discourse (Piola, Muñoz García, 2025)? Are all migrations worth telling? What is the epistemological regime of these narratives, their effects on knowledge, concealment, and mystification? How have these discourses and the conditions of their production evolved historically, and why? The personal or family migration narratives of researchers in migration studies, once overlooked, are now often highlighted (Gemignani et al., 2024; Gerson, 2025), even if this paradoxical exhibition of the intimate elicits some reluctance in return (Traverso, 2020). One issue is whether these reflexive productions about migration are somehow different from other autobiographical elements disclosed by researchers (see Popkin, 2005; Aurell, 2016; Lacoue-Labarthe, 2024). In addition, these writings about the self should be compared with literary and artistic works that deal with the migrant and/or foreign roots of their authors. As they blur the fiction/non-fiction boundaries, such artistic narratives yield important clues about the moral and cultural expectations crystallized in the migrant self. To grasp their specific differences and biases, all of these migration narratives must also be compared with discourses of the self formulated by working-class migrants, who do not have access to the same means of production and dissemination. This workshop will bring together historians, sociologists, psychologists, and artists.

NB: Cet événement est uniquement en présentiel . This event is in person only .

PROGRAMME / SCHEDULE
Lundi 1 er juin 2026 / Monday 1 June 2026

9:00-9:20 Accueil des participant·es. Arrival of participants.

9:20 Introduction : Romy Sánchez et Fabrice Langrognet.

9:30-11:00 La mémoire migrante des historien·nes Historians’ memory of migration

Modératrice/ discussant: Delphine Diaz.

Intervenant·es/ speakers: Ada Ferrer, Mike Bustamante, Stéphane Gerson .

11:00-11:30 Pause café. Coffee break.

11:30-13:00 Quelle spécificité du récit autobiographique des historien·nes ?
How specific are autobiographic accounts by historians?

Modératrice/ discussant: Camille Lefebvre.

Intervenant·es/ speakers: Jaume Aurell, Isabelle Lacoue-Labarthe, Stefan Le Courant.

13:00-14:30 Pause déjeuner. Lunch break.

14:30-16:00 Quand les savant·es sont travaillé·es par leur propre exil When scholars have to contend with their own exile

Modératrice/ discussant: Anna Perraudin.

Intervenant·es/ speakers: Marie-Rose Moro, Elsie Cohen, Michela Passini.

16:00-16:30 Pause café. Coffee break.

16:30-18:00 Documenter sa propre migration familiale par la littérature et le cinéma
Tell the migration of one’s own family through literature and film

Modérateur·rices/ discussants: Romy Sánchez, Fabrice Langrognet.

Intervenant·es/ speakers: Doan Bui , Jorge Vaz Gomes.

Les intervenant·e·s / Speakers

Jaume AURELL is Professor of Medieval History at the Department of History at the University of Navarra (Spain). His main research subjects are medieval and modern historiography, 20th-century historians’ autobiographies, Mediterranean Merchant Culture, and Medieval Coronations.

Mike BUSTAMANTE is Associate Professor of History and the Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. He is the author of Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile (University of North Carolina Press, 2021).

Doan BUI is a journalist and author. She received the Albert-Londres prize in 2013 for her report Les Fantômes du fleuve , on migrants trying to reach Europe via Turkey, published in the Nouvel Observateur magazine. In 2016, she was awarded the Amerigo Vespucci prize for her novel Le Silence de mon père .

Elsie COHEN defended her PhD in Sociology in 2025 at EHESS, with a thesis entitled “Penseurs de l’exil : enquête sur les migrations forcées d’intellectuels vers la France et l’Allemagne au XXIᵉ siècle.”

Ada FERRER is the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University. She was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book Cuba: An American History.

Stéphane GERSON is Professor of French, French Studies, and History at New York University. He recently edited Scholars and Their Kin: Historical Explorations, Literary Experiments (Chicago, 2025) and is writing a historical ethnography of a family story: Les gestes de notre guerre, 1994-1942 (La Découverte, forthcoming).

Isabelle LACOUE-LABARTHE is an Associate Professor (MCF HDR) in History at Sciences Po Toulouse. She has long focused on personal writings from a gender perspective, whether in her research on Mandatory Palestine, the history of Jewish women in Europe, French women in the late 19th century, or intellectual history—particularly in France—in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Stefan LE COURANT is an anthropologist and a tenured researcher at the CNRS based at the Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux (Center for the Study of Social Movements) at EHESS. His work focuses on migration trajectories and experiences, as well as migration management policies. His publications include Vivre sous la menace (2022).

Marie-Rose MORO is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Paris Cité University, and the head of the Maison de Solenn-Maison des adolescents at Cochin Hospital in Paris. Her research focuses in particular on the vulnerability and specific needs of migrant children.

Michela PASSINI is an art historian and a tenured researcher at the CNRS. She specializes in the history of art history, as well as the history of museums and cultural heritage. She is currently working on a senior thesis (HDR) on the migration of German-speaking art historians to English-speaking countries during the 1930s.

Jorge VAZ GOMES is an actor, video and photography artist. In 2025, he defended a PhD in Cinema Studies at Sorbonne-Nouvelle University and Lisbon University, with a thesis entitled “Réflexion autour de la réalisation d’un film sur l’immigration portugaise dans les années 1960 : les enjeux de la représentation de l’histoire intime et familiale au cinéma.” His directorial productions include Jean-Claude (2016), O Soldado Nobre (2017) and Mapa-Esquisito (2018).

Les modératrices / Discussants

Delphine DIAZ is an Associate Professor (MCF HDR) in History at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne. Her research focuses on the history of migration and exile in France and Europe during the 19th century.

Camille LEFEBVRE is a historian and a tenured research director at the CNRS, based at the Institut des mondes africains. She specializes in the history of the Sahel and Central Sahara regions. Her publications include À l’ombre de l’histoire des autres (2022).

Anna PERRAUDIN is a sociologist and a tenured researcher at CNRS. She specializes in migration and inequalities in France and Latin America.

Les organisateur·rices / Conveners

Fabrice LANGROGNET is a historian and a tenured researcher at CNRS, based at MIGRINTER. His research focuses on migration and housing, borders and individual trajectories.

Romy SÁNCHEZ is a historian and a tenured researcher at CNRS, based at the Mondes Américains research unit (EHESS). She specializes in 19th-century Cuba and the Caribbean, as well as the Spanish Empire during the same period.