This talk draws upon Reed-Danahay’s longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork (since 2015) among French citizens who migrated to London in recent decades. She will focus on issues of emplacement and displacement among middle-class French women, and will explore their motivations, desires, and aspirations for moving to London through examples of life stories and personal narratives. This discussion draws upon a book manuscript in progress that concerns what Reed-Danahay terms the “sideways migration” of middle-class, more or less “privileged” migrants who move from one wealthy liberal democracy to another.

Deborah Reed-Danahay is Professor of Anthropology at UB. She is the author or editor of six previous books, including Education and Identity in Rural France: The Politics of Schooling; Autoethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social; Locating Bourdieu; and Bourdieu and Social Space: Mobilities Trajectories, Emplacements.  Reed-Danahay has held a Jean Monnet Chair (European Commission) and is recipient of the rank of “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques” (France).