‘Designated Sites’: A Review of the Photography of Valentin Merlin

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v7i1.210

Abstract

“Designated Sites” is the expression used by French Travellers to describe the stopping places where they are forced to live by the authorities.[1] In France, there are over 1,200 official caravan sites for French Travellers. The photographer Valentin Merlin travelled around the country to document those places and has photographed over 230 of them since 2015.

Author Biography

  • Lise Foisneau, Researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)

    Lise Foisneau is a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). She defended, in 2018, a doctorate in anthropology on the political expressions of a Romani collective in Provence; she conducted postdoctoral research on the memory of the Second World War at the Central European University (Budapest), the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, D.C.), and the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris). Les Nomades face à la guerre (1939–1946), published in 2022, is her first book.

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Published

04/29/2025

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2024): Roma and Environmental Justice in Europe

Section

Arts and culture

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Copyright (c) 2025 Lise Foisneau

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How to Cite

‘Designated Sites’: A Review of the Photography of Valentin Merlin. (2025). Critical Romani Studies, 7(1), 194-199. https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v7i1.210