Quand les mobilités s’entremêlent : trajectoires comparées des populations migrantes et non-migrantes originaires de la Martinique et de la Corse

PhD Defense of Tania Moutai, Doctoral programme in Sociology, Thursday, February 19th 2026. 

Quand les mobilités s’entremêlent : trajectoires comparées des populations migrantes et non-migrantes originaires de la Martinique et de la Corse (French)
Jury members: Nathalie Bernadie-Tahir (University of Limoges), Marine Haddad (PhD Supervisor - INED), Haley MCAVAY (LSE), Ettore RECCHI (PhD Supervisor - CRIS), Mirna Safi (CRIS), Franck Temporal  (Paris Cité University and CEPED).

Research on human displacement has been organized around a tripartite paradigmatic division separating the study of migrations, residential mobility, and tourism mobility. This segmentation has led to a fragmented understanding of trajectories, obscuring the role that these mobilities can play in the construction of (non-)migratory aspirations, projects, and realities. 

Based on a study of the trajectories of populations in the Corsican and Martinique islands, this thesis transcends these compartmentalizations by reconstructing the pathways of (non-)migrants according to a dual approach: on one hand, by analyzing how mobilities structure (non-)migratory aspirations and participate in preparing for departure; on the other hand, by examining how they reconfigure the relationship to the territory of origin once these choices have been made. 

Regarding the influence of mobilities on migratory trajectories, the thesis demonstrates that local residential mobilities can be preliminary to departure and that intensive and diversified extra-insular tourism mobilities can contribute to calibrating the departure project and reducing the costs of socialization in migration. 

Regarding the reconfiguration of the relationship to the region of origin, the thesis first shows that returns to one's home country produce contrasting effects on migrants, oscillating between identity reaffirmation and distancing when tourist othering reveals the gap that has developed with the originating community; secondly, it shows that occasional mobilities of non-migrants to mainland France constitute strategies allowing access to metropolitan resources while avoiding the rupture that migration would represent.

Throughout, this thesis demonstrates that mobilities are simultaneously the product of situated dispositions while crystallizing new ones, at the intersection of class, race, gender relations and territorial configurations specific to each island space.