Introduction The Post-Migratory Postcolonial
After an historical section covering the social, political, and economic dynamics shaping colonial immigration to France (from North and sub-Saharan Africa as well as from Indochina), we explain why we have chosen to develop a critical vocabulary around 'post-migratory postcolonial minorities' and to focus specifically on cultural production by writers, filmmakers, musicians, and artists whose heritage connects them to a colonial context. The introduction then considers the fundamental challenges of identification and self-identification in a context meant to be colorblind and in naming a subject of study for whom there is no consistent social vocabulary. Without dispensing with key concepts to postcolonial studies such as the centre/periphery, we assert that cross-cutting ways of understanding the cultural production at hand are needed. We connect to Françoise Lionnet and Shuh Mei-Shih’s 'minor transnationalism', which encourages transversal explorations across the local, global, national, and transnational, envisages a productive relationship between the 'major' and the 'minor', and in this case re-localizes French culture. The introduction concludes with an overview of contemporary activism (via manifestos, social media campaigns, and marches) to suggest that a range of memories and experiences contribute to and influence what it means to be French today.