The frontiers of collective identity in militancy on suburban housing estates

The objective of this article is to show the process of identity construction that structures the militancy among descendants of North African migrants from the suburban housing estates, committed to three highly different organisations in the years 1990 and 2000 in the Paris region. It questions the relationships and interactions mobilised in this field of militancy with the aim of constructing a “we”. This questioning leads us to consider the evolution in the social and symbolic mechanisms of identification modes, the complexity of personal, collective and social identities, and the heterogeneity of the characteristics and social affiliation of this population.