Countering anti-Asian violence in a Parisian banlieue: Defensive familism

This article examines defensive familism as a previously overlooked response to anti-Asian violence. While ethnic minority mobilizations are portrayed as an effective form of resistance in extant literature, we argue that they only partially capture an Asian minority’s repertoire of anti-violence actions and their outcomes. Based on our ethnographic study in Champ-Haut, an economically and ethnically segregated area on the outskirts of Paris, we show how French-Asians repurpose kinship ties for defensive ends when police protection is unavailable. Adopting a relational perspective, we argue that ‘what’ citizenship is to racialized minority subjects depends on the support state authorities provide them at critical moments, such as exposure to violence. A key contribution of this article is in showing how the replacement of police protection with family-focused self-defence erodes French-Asians’ trust in universalist and individualist ideals of ‘Republican’ citizenship, leading first-generation immigrants to revive belief in traditional Chinese familism and second-generation French-Asians to resent systemic discrimination. Moreover, our intersectional analysis shows how experiences of defensive familism vary by the specific locations French-Asians occupy along the axis of power structuring their family relations. In attending to French-Asian women’s experiences, we show how defensive familism exacerbates pre-existing tensions over gendered and generational family obligations, ultimately limiting women’s autonomy. Identifying a logic of familist compensation for state neglect, the article stresses how France’s racialized minority groups face important structural barriers to the kind of individual citizenship state authorities expect from them.