Outreach location, Grande-Synthe, Antoine Esnos, 2020
How do spatial configurations – peripheral relegation of makeshift camps, distance from urban centers, fragmentation of intervention sites – affect the trajectories of voluntary engagement with exiled people?
The DISEE project (Spatial Dimension of Engagement with Exiles) examines the spatial dimension of discouragement, the making of “long-term volunteers,” and the circulation of knowledge between engagement territories. Led by Antoine Esnos (PhD student in sociology, LATTS, Université Gustave Eiffel) and Annaelle Piva (post-doctoral researcher in geography, UMR Géographie-cités, P.A.R.I.S. team), It has been selected in the first wave of the 2026 “Amorçage” Call for Projects from GIS GESTES.
It focuses more specifically on two borderland field sites (Calais and Briançon). At the intersection of the sociology of work, the sociology of engagement, and the geography of migration, the research employs participant observation, semi-structured interviews, sensitive cartography, and a comparison of associations with differing legal statuses and action models.
The project focuses on three initial hypotheses:
1. The spatialities of voluntary or activist action contribute to a “politics of discouragement” of volunteers and to their burnout.
2. Long-term engagements transform biographical, professional, and activist trajectories, blurring the boundaries between volunteering and paid employment.
3. Engagement careers, often multi-sited, contribute to the circulation of knowledge and to the professionalization of the field of exile assistance in France.
Provisional timeline: Fieldwork in 2026–2027 (Briançon, Calais); findings to be presented at the end of 2027 as part of a study day.
Within the framework of this research, the personal data collected are processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (RGDP). Participants have the right to access, rectify, and delete their personal data. To exercise these rights, they may contact Annaelle Piva (annaelle.piva@parisgeo.cnrs.fr) or Antoine Esnos (antoine.esnos@enpc.fr). The data collected are used exclusively for scientific research purposes and will be deleted once their exploitation (scientific articles, thesis) is completed.
Antoine Esnos is a PhD student in sociology at LATTS (UMR 8134). His research focuses on the drivers of voluntary engagement with exiled people in Île-de-France, Briançon, and Calais. Adopting an approach attentive to the effect of spatialities on activist trajectories, he studies the mechanisms and steps by which an engagement shifts from short-term to long-term in associations where burnout is common and turnover is high.
Annaelle Piva is a post-doctoral researcher in geography at UMR Géographie-cités (P.A.R.I.S. team), funded by Labex DynamiTe. Her doctoral thesis focused on the wandering of exiles in the urban spaces of Paris and Rome. She is particularly interested in the situated dimension of relational networks and their impact both on the migratory, residential, and daily trajectories of exiles and on engagement careers.
