Contested heritage landscapes for Arabic language learning in a postcolonial France

Abstract This article analyzes the contested and multiple meanings of “heritage” that emerge for advanced Arabic language learners in a postcolonial France. A linguistic life histories approach reveals a fraught duality of privileged access and exclusionary adversity for heritage students of Arabic. We analyze three university students' politicized subject positions relative to a postcolonial French heritage landscape in which Arabic language study is marked by cultural, racialized, religious, and linguistic differentiation. We argue that while Arabic language learning in France can accurately be described as a highly valued, widely practiced endeavor, it is also virulently stigmatized and marginalized to the point of cultural erasure. In our analysis, we claim that this apparent contradiction is not merely due to the association of Arabic language with North African migrants from previous French colonies, but rather to a contemporary postcolonial semiotic framing of Arabic. Instead of a neo‐liberal framing of Arabic that is more typical of North American educational contexts, Arabic is either lauded as part of French (post‐)colonial patrimoine (“heritage”) or, more often, degraded as “separatist” heritage or communautarisme (“communalism”).