ABSTRACT
This paper proposes to explore French cultural policy to show how the white boundary making is embedded in the ‘routine structures’ of cultural life. It takes the example of the implementation of national cultural policy as a means of seeing how the privilege of the majority operates. Against a formal insistence that the French definition of citizenship and equality does not leave room for the discussion of visible identities, it argues that immigration issues in relation to culture are relevant loci for the numerous instances of boundary drawings that it helps highlighting. Specifically, it shows how in the process of designing and implementing cultural policies, administrative officials have defined culture as artistic, universal and secular throughout the years. As a consequence of which, the privileged currently take part in the definition of artistic norms, while migration-related minorities have to justify for the social benefit of any of their artistic initiative.
