Life in the Enclave

Abstract

A key feature of the social, political and economic organisation of the Algerians in France was their spatial location in dense ‘micro-ghettos’ or urban enclaves. This chapter will examine the position of migrants within the housing market, the processes of enclave formation, and the rich associational life of the Algerians which was centred on the North African café-lodging house. The organisation of the Algerians in introverted and compact kin and village groups located in spatially segregated zones is of particular importance to the question of weak integration and the low level of contact with the French working class. It also helps explain in part why French society came to develop a racialised stereotype of the immigrants as an alien, secretive and dangerous force lurking in the depths of the worst slums.