**1. Introduction**

This article seeks to address some gaps in Panjabi/Sikh Diaspora studies, namely the lack of engagemen<sup>t</sup> with undocumented migration, all the more surprising that the latter has become a prevalent pattern in current migration flows from Indian Panjab to Europe. The specific experience of Panjabi *kabooter* (pigeons, irregular migrants) has started to be addressed in Panjabi popular culture, in numerous films and songs, but remains silenced in academic literature. One reason pertains to the theoretical framework that has become dominant in migration studies, and more specifically in studies of the Sikh diaspora: transnationalism. It accounts for the intense and multiple ties and connections sustained by migrants across borders, and allowed by technologies of travel and communication. Some major contributions to the field have hence explored a wide range of transnational practices and highlighted issues of institutionalization, socio-economic incorporation, identity politics and religious and cultural transmission. But none of this addresses the specific experience of irregular migrants, nor the material conditions of migration. Another reason might be that this category of migrants represents the hidden face of the enterprising, law-abiding, gurdwara-focused Sikh diaspora and an embarrassing reality for their well-settled and documented counterparts, that perceive themselves as a model minority, as well as for the Indian State and its diplomatic representatives abroad.

I will here explore how their irregular status shapes Panjabi men's experience of migration in France, and more particularly how they negotiate their masculinity in the face of an unprecedented set of socio-economic and legal constraints, which confine them to low-paid, exhausting jobs, a position of inferiority and subordination vis-à-vis well settled migrants and social invisibility and marginalization within their community and the wider society. After discussing the contribution of masculinity studies to my research topic, I will investigate the social world of manual labor that plays a major role in the making of working-class immigrant manhood. The construction sector where most of them are employed operates as a highly gendered and ethnically segmented social space, where as undocumented newcomers, they occupy a subordinated position. The various practices of cultivation of their body (fitness and bodybuilding, hair styling and dyeing, tattooing). can be analyzed as a response to situations of alienation and domination, while also pertaining to a new globalized male aesthetic glorifying the muscular, bearded and hypermasculine body. Lastly, we will explore how ethics and religious beliefs and practices contribute to shaping spaces of self-respect, collective belonging as well as resilience and resistance to their vulnerability.
