The rise of neo-nationalism in the Hauts de France: labor, sociability and politics

This research aims at an anthropological contribution to the study of the evolution of political cleavages in western nation
states, through an ethnographic and historical investigation into the morphological, socio-economic, cultural and political
transformations of the northern mining basin in France. How can we explain the electoral ascendancy of right-wing neonationalism among growing segments of the working classes in the Hauts de France, and the corresponding difficulties
of left-wing forces to gain and maintain support within these social contexts? How did this region evolve from a
stronghold of the labour movement, of socialism, communism and left-wing syndicalism, to becoming one of the greatest
uccesses of the National Rally? Are novel modalities of social and political consciousness emerging alongside the
structural trend towards tertiarization and the development of dispersed and small-scale workplaces and increasingly
casualized and individualized employment relations? What are the effects of such socio-economic restructuring on the
concrete ways in which workers are grouped and associated, on the occupation and inhabitation of the territory, the
forms of residence and neighborhood, on networks of kinship, sociability and solidarity?