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Apart from Bates, Laurent Gayer, a contributor to this volume (see below), has also addressed the issue of inter-ethnic relationships: in his Masters dissertation (Gayer 1998), he draws a comparison between the patterns of relationships between South Asian populations in London and Paris. He shows how diasporic populations can invent a common identity in opposition to the racism of the host-society as is observed in London for instance, while at the same time they can reinvent (and not simply import) the Introduction. Migration and Constructions of the Other: Inter-Communal Relati...

This paper discusses the impact of immigration policies on the ways young undocumented Sikh migrants in Paris negotiate their masculinity. The current criminalization of labor migration from the global South in Europe is disrupting long established patterns of upward mobility through international migration, that entailed remitting money home, getting married and reuniting with one’s family in the host country and moving up the socio-professional ladder from low-paid jobs to self employment. Instead, the life of an increasing number of Sikh migrants in France and elsewhere is marked by irregular status and socio-economic vulnerability. In this context, undocumented Sikh migrants try to assert their gender identity in multiple ways, characterized by homosociality, the importance of manual labor, specific forms of male sociability marked by the cultivation of their body, while remaining firmly grounded in a Sikh/Panjabi religious universe through seva (voluntary service) and gurdwara attendance.

This chapter assesses the role of the political context bringing a transformation of identity rankings in diasporas. Specifically, it studies the role played over the past 15 years by British state policies in the transformation of relationships between two migrant communities originating from South Asia: Sikhs and Muslims. Each community shares antagonistic representations of the other, based on past conflicts, such as the Partition. What they perceive as a hereditary antagonism is not simply imported but transformed in the diaspora by several local variables. Among these, British integration policy toward ethnic minorities is a key factor. While striving since 2005 to foster “community cohesion,” it actually tends to exacerbate the competition between migrant communities related to the allocation of resources, both symbolic and material.

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