Catherine Delcroix – författare

This landmark study follows the Nour family – a Moroccan immigrant couple and their eight French-born children – for more than a decade, offering an intimate and unflinching portrait of migration, resilience and inequality. Through sustained ethnographic observation and life-story interviews with family members, neighbours, teachers, magistrates and social workers, Catherine Delcroix demonstrates the extraordinary analytical power of the in-depth case study. Drawing on Norbert Elias’ concept of configuration, she illuminates intergenerational and gender dynamics within the family, while revealing how public policy shapes – and often distorts – the lives of those it purports to serve.A classic text, this book has been translated in several languages but never made available in English until now. It will appeal to anyone who seeks a richer understanding of the immigrant experience – and makes a compelling case for life-story narratives as an indispensable tool in qualitative social research.