The Institute for European Studies and Rhea Centre of Expertise on Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) cordially invite you to a book presentation on ‘Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France’ by Prof. dr. Jean Beaman (Purdue University, USA). The presentation will be followed by a discussion with commentary from Prof. dr. Iman Lechkar (VUB) and a Q&A session with the author.

While portrayals of immigrants and their descendants in France and throughout Europe often center on burning cars and radical Islam, Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France paints a different picture. Through fieldwork and interviews in Paris and its banlieues, Jean Beaman examines middle-class and upwardly mobile children of Maghrébin, or North African immigrants. By showing how these individuals are denied cultural citizenship because of their North African origin, she puts to rest the notion of a French exceptionalism regarding cultural difference, race, and ethnicity and further centers race and ethnicity as crucial for understanding marginalization in French society.

Jean Beaman is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliated faculty of African-American Studies, Global Studies, and American Studies at Purdue University. She received her graduate and undergraduate degrees from Northwestern University. Prior to joining Purdue, she had postdoctoral fellowships at Duke University and the European University Institute (in Florence, Italy). Her research focuses on race/ethnicity, racism, immigration, and state-sponsored violence in both the United States and France. Her first book, Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France, about children of immigrants, marginalization, cultural citizenship, and racism in France, was published with the University of California Press in 2017. She is also an Associate Editor of the journal, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.