Advocating Without Confronting? Discreet Political Influence and Organisational Boundary-Making Among Migrant-Support Organisations in France

Civil society- and migrant organisations play a key role in migration and inclusion governance through advocacy for inclusion, expertise and policy feedback. Yet, the context of democratic backsliding and restrictive migration and welfare policies often coincides for non-state actors with constraints such as funding cuts, delegitimization, administrative control mechanisms and moral imperatives regarding “citizenship agendas”, such as promoting national values in France. Under these conditions, organisations are facing rising tensions between political access, commitments to social justice and migrants’ rights, institutional conformity and organisational survival. This contribution asks how migrant-support organisations use and define “advocacy” to adapt their roles, strategies and repertoires: often presented as a core function of civil society actors, “advocacy” tends to be perceived as risky, or even dangerous, raising critical questions about remaining room for manoeuvre in shaping policy agendas and public narratives under pressure. Drawing on an ongoing action-research project conducted within a collaborative PhD on local boundary work, this contribution is based on ethnographic fieldwork (participant observations in focus groups, workshops, semi-directive interviews with migrants and professionals) in grassroots and organisations accompanying (former) migrant workers in their access to social rights across three French cities. It seeks to map their action regimes as part of a local meaning-making process, to analyse how these actors assess risks, legitimacy and acceptable forms of engagement to maintain a legitimate position for state institutions and policymakers. To move beyond the dichotomy of resistance and depoliticization, this paper examines how migrant organisations engage in discreet forms of advocacy, reframing contentious action into technical expertise, partnerships and backstage negotiations with authorities. Operating as an all-encompassing category, to what extent do these “advocacy” practices enable political influence while masking deeper tensions in shrinking civic spaces?