
































Analyzing the Performance of Youth Identities in French Cités 

Review by Anton Vegel

Transcultural Teens: Performing Youth Identities in French Cités

by Chantal Tetreault

Wiley-Blackwell, 2015

In Transnational Teens, Tetreault’s most powerful claim is that in French politics and media “‘French’

and ‘Arab Muslim’ are constructed as mutually exclusive” and are in many ways seen as incompatible

(p. 2). This is shown in the ways that North African descendant teens communicate and how their

discursive practices differ internally and externally in the community of Chemin del l’Ile, a government

regulated zone and one of many of les cités (state-subsidized housing projects). The main support for

this  claim is  evidence of  transculturality  that  shows how teens do not  aim (nor  are  there avenues

available)  to  construct  social  identities  as  exclusively  le  français  ordinaire (ordinary  French)  or

community oriented le bled (home country), le respect (respect), and la recaille (street toughs) but are

rather  forced  to  critically  negotiate  group  membership  and  balance  acceptance  and  rejection  of

traditional  cultural  norms.  Tetreault  describes  this  transculturality  as  “how  French  teens  of  North

African  descent  experience  and  express  migration  and  diaspora  in  ways  that  are  related  to  the

experiences of their parents, but that are also innovative, bifurcated, and differential” (p. 4). Through

ethnographic research, Tetreault analyzes such points of communication and negotiation as “self and

other,  here and  there,  feminine and  masculine,  French and  immigrant, as well as  teen and  parent.”

Internally,  these  subjects  are  ideologically  constructed  and  expressed  differently  by  North  African

descendant teens from older generations because of conflicting ideas about “home,” traditional ideas of

how females are expected to interact with men, dress, and use public space, and how a hybrid of  le

français ordinaire and le respect is created with “parental name-calling.” Externally, these subjects are

ideologically constructed and expressed by North African descendant teens from le français ordinaire



in  how  teens  negotiate  membership  to  different  groups  (stigmatized  la  recaille and/or  français

ordinaire) and express “others” through the performative discourse of French social personas and the

revoicing of stereotypes about  les cités and les Arabes (the Arabs). In short, what Tetrault’s analysis

shows  by  presenting  this  ethnographic  data  is  a  vivid  picture  of  how  minorities  in  post-colonial

contexts must critically negotiate membership and ownership. And, because it is found that “racialized

and stigmatizing narratives that highlight  la racaille and criminality have come to dominate public

French discourse regarding les cites,” strong support for the thesis is found (p. 195).

Transcultural  Teens begins  by  meticulously  detailing  the  spatiotemporal  context  where  the

ethnographic data  had been collected.  The spatial  setting,  Chemin del  l’Ile,  is  a  city  slapped with

stigmatizing  labels  such  as  ZEP  (priority  education  zone),  HLM  (rent-subsidized  apartment

complexes), and ZUP (precarious urban zone) that covertly and overtly effect it and other  les cités.

These labels overtly mark les cités as low-income immigrant communities in-need of social aid while

covertly maintaining stigmatized status of immigrant members within les cités and more broadly North

African descendant French citizens (as well as reiterating  l’insécurité, “insecurity,” often mistakenly

associated with les cités). Within this community, Tetreault collected ethnographic data from students

and  tutors  in  the  state-supported  educational  association,  Cerise,  where  she  regularly  taught  and

maintained rapport. The data included audio recordings and notes of students’ and tutors’ discursive

practices in school, on field-trips, at parks, festivals, and in private one-on-one interviews. Not existing

in a vacuum, the temporal reality of Chemin del l’Ile and  les cités and the many consequences of

colonialization  and  short-sighted  labor  initiatives  are  made  clear  to  further  develop  the  research

context.  These case studies  are  further  framed in social  theory.  A theoretical  context  is  built  with

concepts  such  as  imagined  communities  (Anderson  1991),  discursive  racism  (Van  Dijk  2009),

transpolitics (Sliverstein 2004), reflexive sociology and theories of capital (Bourdieu et al. 1999), and

research on youth practices of social identity creation (Bucholtz 2002).

Each chapter presents a specific subject for analysis. These points begin broadly by analyzing the style

of speech in les cités and Chemin del l’Ile that are distinct from le français ordinaire and how external

stereotypes of les cités are revoiced internally by youth. However, the analyses quickly become much

more specifically  relevant to  Chemin del l’Ile by focusing on how discourse regarding  le bled,  le

respect, and la racaille and how North African descendant and modern French gender expectations are

negotiated and expressed, how parental name-calling shows evidence of hybridity in social identity

creation, and how youth performative discourse of French social personas to revoice stereotypes about



les Arabes provides evidence of youth’s critical reflection of dominant racism and stigma. Ultimately,

each chapter successfully analyzes how youth’s perceived membership and ownership of  le bled,  le

respect, la racaille, and le français ordinaire is actively and critically negotiated and expressed through

discourse.

Overall,  the  relevance  and  deep  theoretical  underpinnings  of  Transcultural  Teens offers  social

researchers robust case studies and strong practical examples of discourse analysis at work. As this

review is being written, Donald Trump is gaining social backing for his Republican political standing

through anti-Muslim (and anti-immigration) rhetoric in the U.S. while native social problems are being

scapegoated to stigmatized minorities, and in France Jean-Marie le Pen’s daughter, Marine le Pen, is

actively gaining social support for the National Front based on the same short-sighted rhetoric. The

discourse that these individuals rely on focuses on a romantic idea of a nation while violently ignoring

the reality of the population, a very common pathology of perceived threat which Tetreault often points

to (Raijman, Davidov, Schmidt, and Hochman). Because Transcultural Teens has been so painstakingly

framed in the theoretical field of social research and because the research context has been so well

defined, it offers researchers reliable case studies for future comparison especially due to the broad

range of subjects covered in the analyses. Furthermore, researchers involved or interested in discourse

analysis will find practical examples of its use. Readers will also find the discourse analyses organized,

easy to reference, and very well in-line with the field’s goals making this text both a reliable reference

and practical case study (Van Dijk 2009; Fairclough 1995).

With this said the limitations of any research project must be transparent. Because this text is part of a

book series of topic focused case studies, the focus here is potentially more limited than it would be

otherwise.  Also,  in  the ethnographic tradition,  Transcultural  Teens pulls  case studies from a small

sample of the population, youth within Chemin del l’Ile. Although the research sample is transparent

and well detailed in the text (as the title remains representative), it does provide a spatial limitation.

How the conclusions found in Transcultural Teens are representative of other French cities,  les cités,

and similarly stigmatized populations is not memorably highlighted and rather left  open. However,

because what is presented within these case studies is robust and relevant, a very necessary foundation

for future research is provided among a number of the subject points highlighted earlier. Furthermore,

although a very strong background is provided, a deeper description of any other relevant policy at the

time of data collection could have been provided (if it existed). However, that is not to say that there is

a  gap  in  successfully  building  a  spatiotemporal  context.  Rather,  an  additional  section  was  likely



impossible to include while a focus on youth in Chemin del l’Ile is very successfully accomplished.

Lastly, if the reader is looking for a specific case study, they may be initially careful to preview the text

to  find  relevant  subjects.  Although  the  range  of  topics  analyzed  are  extremely  relevant,  not  all

researchers may find them immediately useful for their own work as they are cases from very a specific

population.

Overall, Transcultural Teens is a very relevant book that has been very well developed and organized.

Tetreault’s well-constructed ethnographic research collection methods and discourse analyses provide

not only a very clear picture but further frame this active and increasingly important context in deep

social theory.

Anton Vegel holds and MA and BA in foreign language education from Kent State University. Anton is

currently an independent researcher and language educator focusing on active and engaged learning

methods as well as more critical and socially inclusive systems of education. Anton has also published

projects  investigating  nation-building/maintenance,  literacy,  discourse,  and  language  policy  while

currently investigating the importance of family in foreign language education.

© 2016 Anton Vegel


