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[Portrait]

Tell us about your journey

I am a geographer, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux, IUT of Bordeaux, Périgueux site. I am attached to UMR 5115 LAM (Africas in the World) and I am also an associated researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry and a fellow of the Convergences Migrations Institute. I studied geography at what was previously called the University of Bordeaux 3. After a DEA in “dynamics of environments and societies” within tropical spaces and a specialization on the Indian world, I am engaged in a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Singaravelou on the Tamil diaspora. Through a multi-sited ethnography (conducted between Paris, other communes of Île-de-France, Pondicherry, and other localities in Tamil Nadu and the northern part of Sri Lanka), I questioned the existence of a diaspora beyond the diversity of migratory trajectories while questioning the frameworks which make it possible to maintain links across and beyond distance (whether temporal or spatial).

What are the research themes you work on?

Developed from a multidisciplinary perspective, my work is mainly in the fields of the geography of migrations and mobilities (spatial and social) and aims to restore different situations of contemporary migrations in a context of globalization where circulation becomes a major element. More specifically, based on the circulatory paradigm, I aim to understand the way in which individuals and societies create their living environments and spatialize their activities. Taking the example of South Asian mobility (Tamil populations specifically), my research analyzes the effects of a triple dynamic of placements: displacement, location, replacement, by addressing the way in which individuals place themselves and are placed.

My research also focuses on other themes that emerged during meetings and exchanges with colleagues. Thus I question the relationships between humans and non-humans (through hunting and nature experiences) and the interactions between economic emergence, middle class and domestic tourism in India and their social and spatial effects. More recently I started new research on migration policies and the creation of asylum in the Indian-Oceanic area (first in Réunion then in Mayotte). A guiding thread connects what can sometimes seem fragmented: mobility (its intention, its management, its effects) and an interest in the concept of “living”.

What are the big questions that motivate researchers on the subject of migration policies?

Moving around, sharing the same world, has become technically feasible. It would remain to be made applicable between men by virtue of Kantian cosmopolitan law [1] . However, if the world as a context does exist in a very large part of economic, financial, communicational, media, and even political activities, from a social point of view, only a thin minority is mobile. Theoretically, this means that only capital is absolutely global: it circulates and its leaders think on a supranational scale, and it does not care about problems of borders, national identities or minorities. In practice, each State is caught in a double dynamic resulting on the one hand in national affirmation in the political sphere and a desire for the denationalization of work, exchange and communications activities. In this permanent hiatus, States invest time, a lot of money and a lot of sense in controlling migratory flows. These public policies express national sovereignty in which the border is a central concern (border of place, of culture generating various processes of othering, and border of national identity). Studying migration policies based on the case of Mayotte allows us to understand the formulations of this triple border.

In Mayotte, the politicization of immigration as a “social problem” was born from the singular combination of the local and national context, separatism with the Comoros producing complex regimes of otherness and an affirmation of remaining within the fold. French. Regular demonstrations against illegal immigration have greatly increased since the 2000s, taking vindictive turns in 2018 and 2024 and which describe the contours of a consensus around the idea that Comorian and particularly Anjouanese immigration constitutes a multifaceted problem from which other crises would arise.

Are there any questions or work you would like to present to us?

For the French State, the only solution envisaged to deal with the migration crisis (which is nevertheless multifaceted) and to stifle the protests which are brewing in Mayotte, involves the modification (or even the abolition) of land law. Mayotte is slipping more and more into a state of exception. The archipelago is thus used as a laboratory where measures (always derogatory) could be tested which would make it possible to further harden national borders. We had already seen this laboratory idea during a previous survey carried out in Reunion as part of the AAP Changes , where we were able to show that in Reunion, the Sri Lankans were victims of policy deficiencies. migratory [2] . More precisely, this study made it possible to show how the state of exception can be deployed even when the law is not there to impose it (through the creation of a special brigade in charge of the execution removal measures, through non-compliance with procedures, or through the use of systematic recording to make removals more effective depending on the schedule of international flights). In other words, the exception is necessary when the borders are far from the metropolis and when a favorable climate is established (thanks to the construction of regimes of otherness).

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[1] “This right, due to all men, is that of offering themselves to society by virtue of the right of common possession of the surface of the Earth on which, since it is spherical, they cannot disperse to the infinite, but must ultimately support each other alongside each other and no one at the origin has more right than another to occupy such a place” (Immanuel Kant (1795). Towards universal peace , Paris, Flammarion, p. 94).

[2] Goreau-Ponceaud Anthony and Corbet Alice, (2023). “In Reunion, Sri Lankans victims of the deficiencies of migration policy”, The Conversation , https://theconversation.com/a-la-reunion-des-sri-lankais-victimes-des-deficiences-de-la- migration-policy-216293