The Suffering of the Immigrant

by Abdelmalek Sayad, Pierre Bourdieu (Preface by), David Macey (Translator)

Overview

This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the condition of the immigrant and it will transform the reader’s understanding of the issues surrounding immigration. Sayad’s book will be widely used in courses on race, ethnicity, immigration and identity in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, politics and geography.

• an outstanding and original work on the experience of immigration and the kind of suffering involved in living in a society and culture which is not one’s own;
  
• describes how immigrants are compelled, out of respect for themselves and the group that allowed them to leave their country of origin, to play down the suffering of emigration;
  
• Abdelmalek Sayad, was an Algerian scholar and close associate of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu - after Sayad’s death, Bourdieu undertook to assemble these writings for publication;
  
• this book will transform the reader’s understanding of the issues surrounding immigration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745626420
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	03/26/2004
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.24(d)

About the Author

Abdelmalek Sayad, 1933-1988, Algerian Sociologist and Director of Research at CNRS (National Centre for Sociological Research)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.

A Note on Terminology.

Preface.

Sources.

Introduction.

1 The Original Sin And The Collective Lie.

2 The Three Ages Of Emigration.

3 An Exemplary Immigration.

4 Nationalism And Emigration.

5 The Backlash On The Society Of Origin.

6 A Relationship Of Domination.

7 The Wrongs Of The Absentee.

8 The Immigrant: ‘Os For Life’.

9 Illness, Suffering And The Body.

10 The Weight Of Words.

11 ‘Naturalisation’.

Appendix: Three Interviews About Identity.

12 Immigration And ‘State Thought’.

13 Recapitulation.

Notes.

References.

Bibliography: The Writings Of Abdelmalek Sayad

Editorial Reviews

A brilliant excavation of the condition we usually describe as immigration. Sayad brings to light aspects of that condition typically camouflaged or neutralized by the language itself of most academic research on immigration. He juxtaposes to this language the apparent opacity of the language of immigrants’ lived experience and helps us see its transparence and what it communicates.’ – Saskia Sassen, author of Guests and Aliens

From the Publisher