Spatial Locations and Dynamics of Immigrants in Rural Areas: Research Directions in France and Recent International Perspectives

This article offers an overview of the literature on the settlement of immigrants in rural areas of France, as well as a comparison with similar research conducted in other Western countries.It notes the paucity and compartmentalization of research on this topic due to the following factors: the subject's disappearance from the research agenda in the 20th century, in parallel with demographic changes occurring in rural areas and a decline in rural studies; the influence of government demand, sensitive to the political and social context, which directs research on immigration towards urban studies; the segmentation between the fields of rural studies and migration studies; and the lack of theorization of the connections between individual trajectories and spatial patterns.It concludes by suggesting lines of research based on a biographical approach, to enable a more dynamic conceptualization of the geography of immigration.