Acting within and against institutions: A reflexive account of an advocacy collective for exiled students (France, 2015–2023)

This article offers a reflexive account of the RESOME collective (2015–2023), mobilized around exiled individuals’ access to French higher education. Founded in 2015, the collective developed a “bottom-up” institutionalization strategy by contributing to the establishment of French language learning programs across some twenty higher education institutions and by strengthening the networking of the associations running them. The success of this activist work rested notably on members’ social capital and institutional positions, which enabled them to emerge as legitimate interlocutors in dealings with institutional actors. Nevertheless, the analysis reveals the paradox inherent in this form of “institutional activism”—one that seeks to reconcile a commitment to effective action with a sustained critique of institutions—and exposes several constitutive tensions: powerlessness in the face of repressive migration policies, difficulties in achieving inclusivity, increasing specialization, and the progressive narrowing of the collective along affinity lines. These dynamics ultimately led to the collective’s self-dissolution.