Inherited Hybridity: The Case of So-Called “Intranger” Class Transfuges

Abstract

The article focuses on several cases of contemporary Francophone class transfuges who may be described as intrangers, a neologism coined by Benmiloud (2003) and later developed on a critical level by Vitali (2011). These are children of immigrant parents who seek to integrate into the country where they were raised without renouncing their origins. Intranger transfuges are doubly hybrid: in addition to being divided between the popular context from which they come and the intellectual milieu they have now entered, they also oscillate between the values of their culture of origin and those of the country in which they live. By comparing the statements of non-intranger transfuges (Didier Eribon, Annie Ernaux, and Édouard Louis) with those of three intranger transfuges (Omar Benlaâla, Faïza Guène, and Nesrine Slaoui), the article highlights in the latter group both the desire and the need to preserve their original culture by integrating it into the context of arrival.