Deborah Reed-Donahay's "Sideways Migration" offers a nuanced exploration of middle-class migration, challenging conventional understandings of this phenomenon. The book focuses on French citizens relocating to London, examining their motivations, experiences, and strategies for integration. It delves into the complexities of emplacement and dislocation, highlighting how these processes are shaped by broader socio-political contexts such as Brexit and the pandemic. The study also introduces the concept of a 'French emigration apparatus,' revealing the extensive network of institutions supporting French citizens abroad. Ultimately, the book provides valuable insights into transnationalism and the diverse experiences of middle-class migrants.
Sideways Migration: Being French in London (Routledge, 2025) examines the relationship between migration and socioeconomic status. In particular, it charts a set of middle-class aspirations that lead people to move to a nearby nation that is similar in wealth and social indicators - a type of horizontal relocation that it terms "sideways migration." It chronicles the experiences of a diverse group of French middle-class citizens who moved to London during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Based on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork over a ten-year period, this book engages at length with their strategies of emplacement through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of social space. Against a backdrop of heightened anxieties about immigration, the disruptions of the Brexit process and, more recently, a pandemic, it shows how middle-class migration is affected by processes of dislocation and relocation, settling and unsettling, and the search for belonging. This book points to new directions for understanding transnationalism among middle-class migrants through its consideration of the French emigration apparatus and the role of the multisite French nation in the lives of its citizens living abroad. It will be key reading for scholars and students interested in emigration and migration from anthropology, sociology, geography, political science, history, and international studies.
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New Books in Sociology