En quête d'appartenances

Abstract

How do we define ourselves today? The social transformations of the twentieth century have profoundly modified the markers of identity that once seemed immutable.

In the past, people defined themselves socially through their profession, their family, their geographical territory. But over recent decades, the weakening of traditional institutions has been accompanied by growing diversity in the forms of identity and of life trajectories.

Conducted in 2003 by INSEE and its partners, the key purpose of the Histoire de vie survey was to determine how social actors identify themselves today.

This book explores individual life courses via a range of identity markers: territory, family, social group, conjugality, occupational status, political and religious affiliation, languages spoken, but also disability and disease.

Moving away from traditional classifications, sociologists, demographers, economists, geographers and psychosociologists present their viewpoints from a new angle. They explore a highly original dimension of the survey which compares the objective components of individuals’ lives with the subjective opinion that they hold about themselves. This survey is the first in France to capture, using statistical data, the multiple facets of individual identity.