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Julia Descamps
PHD (sociology)
julia.descamps(at)ined.fr
Secretariat : Christine Gonzalez +33 (0)1 56 06 20 17
Secretariat : Christine Gonzalez +33 (0)1 56 06 20 17
Research field(s)
In France, family reunification emerged in the 1970s as a central migration policy and one of the main options available to migrants to bring their family members from abroad. Since then, policies regulating family migration have multiplied and transformed, with other procedures being added to “family reunification” stricto sensu. Family immigration has become increasingly selective, particularly because it is suspected of being a “suffered immigration” — poorly skilled, poorly integrated, “traditional” — as opposed to what would be considered a “chosen immigration”. This research aims to study how immigrant families cope with the injunctions, norms, and constraints imposed by these various legal forms of migration, and how the institutional sphere penetrates the private and domestic sphere during migration trajectories. To study how family migrants engage with the administrative categories of residency, the research combines an analysis of a corpus of legal texts and case law, statistical analyses of administrative and survey data, and several ethnographic and biographical fieldworks.
The thesis shows that family immigration policies are normative and selective, defining the boundaries of the “family morality” expected of immigrants, both men and women, which is anchored in a social and racial order. When the legal and biological ties of alliance and filiation are central to obtaining a family residence permit, the paperwork accompanying an application involves a multitude of family members. Moreover, the ability to assert one's rights to family immigration is not equally distributed. On the family level, these policies marginalize the most precarious immigrant families, while on the individual level, the ability to “do the paperwork” varies greatly depending on educational, linguistic, and gender resources, as well as the migration timeline. While the law enshrines equality among family members as an “essential principle of the French Republic” and upholds the “right to a normal family life”, inequalities in status and unequal family arrangements between generations, among siblings, and between couples result from this restrictive legal framework. These inequalities often reinforce and legitimize, sometimes reshape, and more rarely mitigate, power relations within and between families, intersecting with class, race, and gender dynamics.
See Resume (2023)
Research teams
More information about his·her Research
Migrants and their Movements - MigMouv
Migration, integration and anti-discrimination policies- PolMig
Some publications
Julia Descamps & Cris Beauchemin (2022) Reunifying or leaving a child behind: how official and unofficial state selection shape family immigration in France, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2022.2114888
Julia Descamps, « « Svp partagez vos parcours ». Expériences administratives du regroupement familial en France et stratégies collectives en ligne face aux institutions », Enfances Familles Générations [En ligne], 41 | 2022, mis en ligne le 15 septembre 2022. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/efg/14398
Julia Descamps (2024). Can We See Their ID? Measuring Immigrants’ Legal Trajectory: Lessons From a French Survey. International Migration Review, URL : https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183241295995
Teaching activities, other functions, titles
Some communications :
« Une vie familiale ‘‘normale‘‘ ? La politique française de l’ordre familial des immigré·es à partir des refus de séjour », Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, 17 octobre 2024
« Migrations familiales... de quelles familles ? La politique de l’ordre familial des immigré-es à partir des refus de séjour », Colloque international de l’Association internationale des démographes en langue française (AIDELF), Aveiro, 27-30 août
« Des familles migrantes bien connectées ? Activité, influence et affinités en ligne dans des groupes d’entraide sur les démarches de regroupement familial : une analyse de réseaux », French Sociological Association Conference, Lyon, 5th July 2023
« “Share your story”: Administrative experiences of family reunification in France and collective strategies towards institutions», American Sociological Association Annual Conference, Los Angeles, 7th August 2022
« Faire les papiers, (dé)faire famille. La circulation des ressources administratives au sein des familles immigrées, entre solidarité, subordination et indépendance », INED Doctoral Symposium Day, 16th May 2022
« Reunifying or leaving one’s child behind: how do official and unofficial State selection shape family immigration in France? », International Population Conference, IUSSP, 7th December 2021 (online)
« Maisonnées migrantes, familles de papier. Recomposer sa famille en migration sous contrainte administrative », Séminaire Quantitativisme Réflexif, IDHE.S, ENS Paris-Saclay, 11th December 2020
Institutional investment :
2022-2024 : Doctoral students representative at CRESPPA-CSU
2020-2022 : Organization and moderation of CSU and INED doctoral seminars
Teaching :
2024-2025. Teaching at Université Paris 8 (192 hours)
- Méthodes en sciences sociales, (1st year Bachelor)
- Décrire la société française, (1st year Bachelor)
- Introduction à la démographie et aux statistiques, (2nd year Bachelor)
- Approfondissements statistiques, (3rd year Bachelor)
2023-2024. Teaching at ENS-PSL (22,5 hours).
- Webscraping avec R, (2nd year Master)
2020-2023. Teaching at Université Paris-8 Vincennes Saint-Denis (200 hours).
- Transformations sociales du XXème siècle : approches
biographiques, (1st year Bachelor)
- Méthodes en sciences sociales, (1st year Bachelor)
IT tools :
- JDL "Making up places"
Algorithm to anonymize the names of French cities. DOI : 10.5281/zenodo.7688371
- OFPRA Admission
Interactive cartographic display of admissions for international protection in France, by nationality.
- Github