Team

Magali Bessone is a Professor of political philosophy at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, member of the ISJPS (Institut des Sciences Juridique et Philosophique de la Sorbonne, UMR 8103) and associate researcher at CIRESC. Her research focuses on theories of justice, theories of democracy and critical theories of race and racism. She is the author of Sans distinction de race ? (Vrin, 2013), the co-editor, with Gideon Calder and Federico Zuolo, of How Groups Matter ? Challenges of Toleration in Pluralistic Societies (Routledge, 2014) and the co-editor, with Daniel Sabbagh, of Race, racisme, discriminations : une anthologie de textes fondamentaux (Hermann, 2015). Her other publications include articles in the European Journal of Political Theory, the Journal of Applied Philosophy, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Ethique Publique, Global Justice, Raisons Politiques and the International Social Science Journal.

Elisabeth Cunin is senior research fellow at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and director of the UMR URMIS, Unité de Recherche Migrations et société (CNRS, IRD, Paris Diderot University, Nice University). She is member of the Directive Board of the CIRESC, Centre international de recherche sur les esclavages, coordinated by Myriam Cottias, CNRS. Her researches focus on the dynamics of racialization and etnicization in post-slavery societies, in Latin America and the Caribbean (Colombia, Mexico, Belize). Recent publications: Administrer les étrangers. Migrations afrobeliziennes dans le Quintana Roo, 1902-1940, Paris, Karthala-Collection Esclavages, IRD, 2014 ; with Odile Hoffmann, « Le Belize, une société pluriculturelle sans politiques multiculturelles? », Problèmes d’Amérique Latine, No. 92, 2015, pp. 91-109; “Blackness and mestizaje: Afro-Caribbean music in Chetumal, Mexico”, Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 2014, March, vol. 9, No. 1, pp.1-22.

Sonia Desmoulin-Canselier is a CNRS researcher, affiliated to the Droit et Changement Social research center (UMR 6297 Université de Nantes/CNRS) and associated to the Institut des Sciences Juridiques et Philosophiques at Sorbonne (UMR 8103 Université Paris 1/CNRS) and to the Centre d’études des normes juridiques (CENJ/Yan Thomas, EHESS). Holding a PhD in private law and criminology from Université Paris 1, she investigates the relationships between law and empirical sciences, understood as a collection of practices, organized knowledge and power locations. From this perspective, she has explored a variety of legal issues pertaining to the development of nanotechnologies, neurosciences, biotechnologies and genetics. It is in this respect that she became interested in the use of ethno-racial categories in medicine and genomics (see Les catégories ethno-raciales à l’ère des biotechnologies. Droit, sciences et médecine face à la diversité humaine, Editions de la Société de Législation comparée, collection de l’UMR de droit comparé de Paris, vol. 24, 2011). She is currently examining the links between personalized medicine, precision medicine, big data and genomics (especially as part of the "DataSanté" project and in the CNRS "Genomics SHS" research network,  which she became the head of in January 2018.  

Holding a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science, and an MPhil in Anthropology of Health, Claude-Olivier Doron is currently a Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science at the University Paris Diderot (SPHERE/Centre Canguilhem). After having dedicated  a lot of research to the history and topicality of the relations between justice and psychiatry, his current work focuses mainly on the longue durée political and epistemological history of the race concept (16th-20th century) and on how this concept is today being mobilized across biomedical sciences, ancestry tests and online communities (particularly in the alt-right). Specifically, after studying in depth the 17th-18th century period, Claude-Olivier Doron is currently working on two parallel projects: 1) the role that liberal, republican and proto-socialist traditions have been playing in integrating the "race doctrine" to envision the history and destiny of political societies in early 19th century France; 2) the transformations of the race concept in the genetics of human populations and in biomedical sciences, especially in the French-speaking world, between 1945 and the 1980s. Claude-Olivier Doron has published various articles on the history and current use of the race concept and is the author of a book on the topic L’homme altéré. Races et dégénérescence, XVIIe-XIXe s. (Champ Vallon, Paris, 2016). Another book (Race, libéralisme et républicanisme en France au début du XIXe s.) is currently under preparation. His publications are available on his website. 

Juliette Galonnier works as a post-doctoral fellow for the Global Race project. She received in 2017 a double PhD in Sociology from both Northwestern University and Sciences Po. Entitled Choosing Faith and Facing Race: Converting to Islam in France and the United States, her dissertation won the Best Dissertation Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in 2018. This research provides a comparative analysis of the experiences of converts to Islam in France and the United States. Juliette Galonnier studies the social construction of race and how it intersects with religion. Using in depth-interviewing with 80 Muslim converts and ethnographic observations in convert support groups in Paris and Chicago, she demonstrates that, on the two sides of the Atlantic, the religion of Islam is conflated with racial considerations, which durably affects converts’ experiences. On this topic, she has published several book chapters and articles in academic journals such as Sociology of Religion, Social Compass, and Tracés. She is also a member of Tracés’ editorial board.

Sarah Mazouz completed a PhD in sociology (2010) and is a CNRS researcher at CERAPS. Before that, she was Marie Curie Fellow at the Humboldt University in Berlin and postdoctoral fellow in the ANR project Global Race and in the ERC program MORALS – Towards a Critical Moral Anthropology. Her main research topics are antidiscrimination policies in France, occupational integration policies toward racialized youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and citizenship politics in France and Germany. Her work draws on ethnography and relies on Critical Race studies, sociology of law, sociology of public policies and critical moral anthropology. She is the author of La République et ses autres. Politiques de l’altérité dans la France des années 2000 (Lyon, ENS Éditions, 2017). She co-edited along with Véronique Bontemps and Chowra Makaremi the collective volume Entre accueil et rejet. Ce que les villes font aux migrants (Paris, Le Passager clandestin, 2018) and she contributed to two edited volumes: Juger, réprimer, accompagner. Essai sur la morale de l’État (Paris, Seuil, 2013) and At the Heart of State. The Moral World of Institutions, London, Pluto, Press, 2015. Her other publications include articles in the Revue française de sociologie, Genèses. Sciences sociales et histoire, Droit et société, Politix and Raison politique.

Graziella Moraes Silva joined the Graduate Institute in Geneva in Fall 2016 as Assistant Professor in Anthropology and Sociology of Development. Between 2011 and 2016, she was at the Department of Sociology of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil and is still affiliated to the Graduate Program in Sociology and Anthropology (PPGSA) and to the Interdisciplinary Network for the Study of Inequality (NIED) at the same university. Dr. Moraes Silva earned her PhD and Master’s degrees in Sociology at Harvard University. She works at the intersection between inequality studies and cultural sociology. Her current research projects focus on comparative race relations and elites’ perceptions of poverty and inequality. She is one of the authors of Getting Respect: Dealing with Stigmatization and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil and Israel  (Princeton University Press, 2016), and Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). 

Holding a degree from the Institut d’études politiques of Grenoble, a PhD from the EHESS, and a HDR (professorial thesis) from Paris 1 University, Carole Reynaud-Paligot is associate researcher at the Center for Historical Research on the 19th century at Paris 1 University. She has taught at the University of Franche-Comté and in the various Parisian branches of American universities (NYU, University of California), as well as at Sciences Po Paris. She is currently the scientific co-curator of the exhibit « Nous et les autres, des préjugés au racisme » at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. Specializing on the history of intellectuals and the history of racialization processes, she has published: Parcours politique des surréalistes 1919-1969, Editions du C.N.R.S, 1995, pocket edition, 2010 ;  La République raciale 1860-1930. Paradigme racial et idéologie républicaine, Paris, PUF, 2006 ; Races, racisme et antiracisme dans les années 1930, PUF, 2007 ; De l’Identité nationale. Science, race et politique. Europe-Etats-Unis. XIXe-XXe siècle, PUF, 2011 ; L’Ecole aux colonies entre mission civilisatrice et racialisation 1815-1940 (forthcoming).

Julie Ringelheim is Senior Researcher with the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS) and with the Centre for Philosophy of Law of Louvain University (UCL). She is also Lecturer in International Human Rights Law and Sociology of Law at UCL. Graduate in Law from the free University of Brussels (1998), LLM from Cambridge University (Trinity Hall College), she obtained her PhD at the European University Institute in Florence. Her areas of research include international and European antidiscrimination law, international minority rights, personal data protection, and equality theories. Among her publications, lie Politiques antidiscriminatoires (with G. Herman and A. Rea, De Boeck, 2015), Ethnic Monitoring: The Processing of Racial and Ethnic Data in Anti-Discrimination Policies (with O. De Schutter, Bruylant, 2010) and Cultural Diversity and Human Rights. The protection of minorities through the European Convention on Human Rights (in French) (Bruylant, 2006). Other publications include articles in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Modern Law Review, Human Rights Law Review and European Anti-discrimination Law Review. She has been a visiting Fellow at New York University, Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics.

Daniel Sabbagh holds a doctorate in political science (2000) and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Sciences Po (Centre de recherches internationales). He is the author of L’Égalité par le droit: les paradoxes de la discrimination positive aux États-Unis (Paris, Économica, 2003), which received the François Furet Book Award and was partly published in English under the title Equality and Transparency: A Strategic Perspective on Affirmative Action in American Law in 2007 (New York, Palgrave). He is the co-author (with Stéphanie Balme) of Chine/États-Unis: fascinations et rivalités (Paris, Autrement, 2008) and the co-editor [with Magali Bessone] of Race, racisme, discriminations: une anthologie de textes fondamentaux (Paris, Hermann, 2015) and [with Anna Mountford-Zimdars and David Post] of Fair Access to Higher Education: Global Perspectives (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2014). His other publications include articles in World Politics, Daedalus, Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Political Science Quarterly, the Comparative Education Review, the International Social Science Journal, French Politics, Culture, and Society, and a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Michel Rosenfeld and Andras Sajo (eds.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012). Along with legal scholar Gwénaële Calvès, he is the co-founder of the “Antidiscrimination Policies” seminar at Sciences Po. He is also the former editor of Critique internationale, a peer-reviewed journal in comparative politics and international relations. He is a member of the executive committee of ARDIS (Alliance de Recherche sur les Discriminations). He teaches at Sciences Po.

Paul Schor is associate professor in American history at the Université Paris Diderot, on research leave at INED 2016-17. He is the author of Counting Americans. How the US Census Classified the Nation, Oxford UP, 2017 (Translation of Compter et classer, Editions de l’EHESS 2009) and of numerous articles and chapters of the history of immigration, race and racialization in the US. His current research is on the role of state agents in the standardization of everyday life in the United States from 1865 to 1940, with an emphasis on race.

Patrick Simon is Director of research at INED (Institut National d’Etudes Demographiques –National demographic institute) within the resarch unit “International Migration and Minorities” and is fellow researcher at the Center of European Studies (CEE) at Sciences Po. He is studying antidiscrimination policies, ethnic classification and the integration of ethnic minorities in European countries. He has chaired the scientific panel “Integration of immigrants” at the IUSSP (International Union for the Scientific Studies of Population) and was appointed at the Scientific Board of the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Commission in Vienna (2008-2013). He has edited recently with V.Piché a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies, « Accounting for ethnic and racial diversity: the challenge of enumeration » (35:8, 2012).