Introduction

In this article, the analytical perspective is that of the theory of social representations (SR). This theory, developed in 1961, is the subject of international congresses held every two years, such as the one to be held at the university of Brest in July 2025. Seven criteria for analyzing migrant SR will be discussed: the ternary character of SR theory; its specificity as a psychosocial compromise; the primacy of the collective matrix of social construction of reality, although individual opinions also count; the structuralist apprehension of socio-cognitive positions; the integration of the cognitive polyphasia hypothesis; its operationalization in two studies on the silent zones of Gypsy and North African SR. In conclusion, we propose to consider the SR of migrants emanating from ordinary citizens as much as from the immigrants themselves, in order to better succeed in their concrete, interactionally operated and territorialized accompaniment.