Adventure Capital
The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation Endowment Fund in Humanities.
Adventure Capital
Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris
Julie Kleinman
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2019 by Julie Kleinman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kleinman, Julie, author.
Title: Adventure capital : migration and the making of an African hub in Paris / Julie Kleinman.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2019014743 (print) | LCCN 2019019829 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520304406 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520304413 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520973084 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: West Africans—France—Paris. | Immigrants—France—Paris. | Gare du Nord (Paris, France). | Racism—Economic aspects—France—Paris.
Classification: LCC DC718.A34 (ebook) | LCC DC718.A34 K55 2019 (print) | DDC 944/.361004966—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019014743
Manufactured in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dòw b’a fò olu ma “clandestin”
Anw dun ko olu ma tunkannaden
Some call them “illegals”
We call them children of adventure
—FATOUMATA DIAWARA, CLANDESTIN
Contents
2. The Exchange Hub
3. The Gare du Nord Method
4. Hacking Infrastructures
5. The Ends of Adventure
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been an adventure, and like the Gare du Nord it brings together paths both beaten and less explored. It is a product of encounters across many boundaries. It has been shaped through ongoing conversations with research participants, friends, and mentors—and several people who have been all three. At the end of the day, I had to sit down and write, a practice I often experienced and heard described as isolating and painful. Yet thanks to this long journey, I have created many ties, and they are the kind that give life meaning and that lift us from isolation. This book is a profoundly social product, a product of many adventures.
“The adventure is hard work.” This refrain of many West African migrants in Paris came to me often as I was writing, as did their imperative to avoid getting stuck, to keep moving. My deepest gratitude goes to the people who give this project its life and its source. Without Baha Niakate, it may have never gotten off the ground. More than a key informant, he has also acted as research assistant, friend, and brother. His generosity and insight into the social world of the Gare du Nord allowed my research to take flight. His family in France and in Mali—Mina, Silima, Bakary, and Tene—has taken me in and traveled with me, and I will keep trying to find ways to reciprocate their hospitality. The group of West African men I met at the Gare du Nord let me into their community, amiably put up with my intrusive questions, shared their stories, and taught me more than I could contain in this book.
I was able to research and write this book thanks to the support of several institutions and grants. These include the Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council, the Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Award of the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies, the Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship of Harvard University, the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Harvard Department of Anthropology, the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Harvard Committee on African Studies, the Cora Du Bois Trust, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, the Oberlin College H. H. Powers Grant, Penn State University, the Penn State Center for Global Studies Career Development Award, and Fordham University. I wrote and revised much of the manuscript thanks to a Macmillan-Stewart Fellowship at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute of the Hutchins Center at Harvard University. I thank these institutions and the many people who administer these grants and fundings for their support and work. Parts of chapter 4 appeared in “Adventures in Infrastructure: Making an African Hub in Paris,” City & Society 26(3): 286–307 (2014); parts of chapter 5 appeared in “The Path Between Two Points,” Transition (113): 25–43 (2014) and “From Little Brother to Big Somebody: Coming of Age at the Gare du Nord,” in Affective Circuits: African Journeys and the Pursuit of Social Regeneration, edited by Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes, 245–68, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2016). I thank the publishers for the permission to reprint this material.
The folks in Paris who made this research possible are too numerous to list here. I would like to thank Catherine Avice and the SNCF workers at the TGV-Escale Gare du Nord, Patrick Cabaniols and Yann Lorquin, for welcoming me as a summer intern and making me feel like part of the cheminot family. The Gare du Nord railway police team (SUGE) generously allowed me to intrude upon them on several occasions, as did the Equipe Assistance Rapide team. Thanks to Etienne Tricaud and Daniel Claris for offering their time and insight about redesigning the station. The Association pour l’Histoire
