En quête de lieux d’expressions : le cas de jeunes femmes racisées à Montréal

This thesis explores the urban and virtual spaces of expression mobilized by young racialized women in Montreal, Canada. It is based on a case study that was carried out between 2017 and 2018 on two francophone blogs – Amalgame and Tout le Hood en Parle – as well as librairie Racines, a bookstore whose mission involves the promotion of young racialized women’s perspectives and voices. More specifically, this research aims to better understand how such spaces contribute to and enable these women’s strategies for greater visibility within mainstream society and their participation in current public debates surrounding “le Vivre Ensemble” in the Quebec context. The first section of this thesis introduces the issues of representation faced by racialized women in Montreal as well as the diversity of spaces they mobilize, mainly through an exploration of the links between their virtual and material territorialities. This will be followed in section two by a presentation of the case study and the results of the ethnographic methodology used. Results suggest that these young women mobilize a large variety of spaces which translate into networked geographies of public expression and urban space appropriation tactics. These territorialities are conditioned by the lived experiences of these women, and their appropriation of virtual and material space corresponds to particular forms of marginalization they face related to race, gender and class. Finally, amid their search for public expression and participation, localized urban scales of activity and discourse constitute their most important fields of engagement.