Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
Chapter 1: London as a Space of Possibilities
Chapter 2: Emplacements and Dislocations
Chapter 3: Fieldwork in "Brexit Times"
Chapter 4: The French Emigration Apparatus
Chapter 5: French Imaginaries of London Life
Conclusion
References
Index
Biography
Deborah Reed-Danahay is Professor of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo. Her recent books include Bourdieu and Social Space: Mobilities, Trajectories, Emplacements (2020) and the edited volume Anthropological Approaches to Reading Migrant Writing (w/H. Wulff, 2024). She co-edits the book series Palgrave Studies in Literary Anthropology and is a former president of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe. She holds the title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, conferred by the French government.
"...the exploration of the 'French Emigration Apparatus' (Chapter 4) is insightful...Engagingly written by an experienced anthropologist the book deploys concepts and methodologies that are valuable to fieldwork researchers...it is acknowledged that change is a constant in this type of research — an apt observation at the moment when the political weather changes again for UK-French and European co-operation."
- Debra Kelly, French Studies: A Quarterly Review, vol. 79 no. 4 (2025)
"Reed-Danahay ...captures the elusive “je ne sais quoi” of French middle-class migration in London while opening up new perspectives to account for diversity within diversity, one of the key challenges of contemporary migration studies...Particularly innovative is Reed-Danahay’s engagement with French imaginaries about London life as represented through arts and cultural artifacts.... demonstrat(ing) how cultural representations shape place-based expectations in ways that extend beyond individual narratives."
- Benedicte Brahic, International Migration Review (2025)
