Table des matières

The Authors

Philippe Antoine et Éva Lelièvre

General Presentation

Philippe Antoine et Éva Lelièvre

What is Fuzzy: the Time, the Event or the State?

• Fuzzy Time
• The Researcher, the Interviewer, the Respondent and the Others
• Which Transition: Experiencing an Event or Changing Status?
• Single and Multiple Transitions

Éva Lelièvre, François Roubaud, Christine Tichit et al.

CHAPTER 1

Factual Data and Perceptions: Fuzziness in Observation and Analysis

• 1. Comparing Facts with Perceptions
• 1.1. Retrospective Interpretation
• 1.2 Hébergement (“Housed by Family or Friends”): Observation and Measurement of a Perceived State
• 1.3. Working Career Versus Main Occupation
• 2. Perceptions Help with Quantitative Categorization
• 2.1. How Qualitative Exploration Improves Statistical Categorization: Female Heads of Household
• 2.2. Integrating Perceptions to Grasp the Diversity of the Situations Encountered: When Is a Couple not a Couple?
• 2.3. Reconstituting the Circle of Close Friends and Family
• 2.4. From “Mother” and “Father” to “Mothers and Fathers”
• 2.5. From Parental Universe to Important Persons: a More Difficult Extension
• 3. Measuring Perceptions in Economics: Subjective Poverty and Well-Being
• 3.1. A Promising Field of Investigation: Poverty and Subjective Well-Being
• 3.2. Other Fields of Application: Business Cycle Surveys and Expert Surveys on Governance
• 3.3. Perceptions of Well-being and Life Course Surveys
• 4. The Life Course As a Whole: Actual and Perceived Time Periods
• Conclusion

Philippe Antoine, Agnès Adjamagbo, Fofo Amétépé et al.

CHAPTER 2

Union and Separation: Love Stories Are Never Simple

• 1. Reconciling Norms and Practices
• 2. Casual Unions, Love Affairs and “Premarital” Unions
• 3. The Start of a Union: a Process Over Time
• 4. And When Does a Union End?
• 5. Fuzzy States, the Order of Events and Conjugal Status
• 6. Stages Chosen, Stages Imposed
• 6.1. Events Imposed by Family or Social Circle
• 6.2. Situations Imposed by an Event Concerning the Partner
• 6.3. Anticipating an Event
• 7. Combining the Quantitative and the Qualitative: Coherence With Hindsight?
• 8. Are Marital Processes in Different Societies Comparable?
• Conclusion

Annabel Desgrées du Loû, Michèle Ferrand, Hermann Brou et al.

CHAPTER 3

The Many Transitions Around Pregnancy

• 1. Pregnancy: Planned or Involuntary? Complex Perceptions of the “Right Moment” to Fall Pregnant
• 2. From the Personal to the Conjugal
• 2.1. “The Right Moment to Have a Baby”: Considering the Social and Family Circle
• 2.2. “Fuzzy Conjugality”: the Evolving Reality of the Couple
• 2.3. Understanding the Reproductive Decisions of HIV-Positive Women. Reflections Based on the Abidjan Example
• 2.4. What Information Should be Gathered to Grasp the Complexities of a Conjugal Situation?
• 3. Analysing Imbricated Processes: Seeking the Source
• 3.1. Dating the Start of a Pregnancy
• 3.2. Dating the Return to Sexual Relations After a Birth
• 3.3. Dating the Weaning of a Breastfed Infant
• 3.4. Taking Anticipation of a Process Into Account
• 4. After the Birth: the Postpartum Trajectory
• Conclusion

Valérie Golaz, Catherine Bonvalet, Daniel Delaunay et al.

CHAPTER 4

“Being Housed”: A State with no Status

• 1. Identifying Periods When a Person is Being Housed During Data Collection
• 1.1. Sources Identifying hébergement in France
• 1.1.1. Identifying hébergement from National Surveys
• 1.1.2. Identifying Those Being Housed from the Biographies et entourage Survey
• 1.2. Identifying Those Being Housed in Colombia
• 1.2.1. Identifying Those Being Housed from National Surveys
• 1.2.2. Identifying Episodes of Being Housed from Life Course Surveys in Bogota and the Casanare Oil Towns
• 1.3. Identifying Those Being Housed in African Households
• 1.3.1. Who Is “Being Housed” in Dakar?
• 1.3.2. Being Housed in Kisii, Kenya
• 1.4. Conclusion
• 2. Time and Types of Being Housed Dynamics and Contours
• 2.1. The Transition From Childhood to Adulthood
• 2.1.1. Autonomy Means Different Things in France and Colombia
• 2.1.2. Maturity and Residential Autonomy in Africa: Different Timings, Changing Patterns
• 2.2. Being Housed in Adult Life
• 2.2.1. A Common Situation
• 2.2.2. Fuzziness and Flexibility
• 2.2.3. A Further Complication: Multiple Residences
• Conclusion: Observation and Analysis of a Fuzzy State

Anne E. Calvès, Michel Bozon, Alioune Diagne et al.

CHAPTER 5

Transition to Adulthood: Rethinking the Definition and Analysis of First-Time Events

• 1. The Founding Event: Examples from France
• 1.1. “Coupling”, or How to Analyse First-Time Events
• 1.2. Becoming Independent for Transport, in Theory and Practice
• 1.3. Sexual Initiation and Conjugality: Consensual Union
• 1.4. What Kind of Job Counts?
• 2. Neither Teenagers Nor Adults: The Fuzzy In-Between Status of Young Urban Africans
• 2.1. Emergence of Youth as a Life Stage in Africa
• 2.2. New Trajectories into Adult Life
• 2.3. Fuzzy Transitory States of Urban Youth
• 2.4. Looking for New Thresholds
• Conclusion

Françoise Dureau, Cris Beauchemin, Marie-Laure Coubès et al.

CHAPTER 6

Spatial Mobility in Evolving Situations: Cross-Analysis of the Two Dynamics

• 1. Individuals’ Life Course Transitions and History of Place
• 1.1. The Polysemic Nature of Place
• 1.2. From Individual Residential Histories to Contextual Transitions
• 1.2.1. Information Systems for Sociospatial Dynamics
• 1.2.2. Analytical Challenges
• 1.3. Contextual Transitions in Sedentary Lives: “Passive” Mobility
• 2. The Context of Individual Transitions
• 2.1. The Time Scale for Measuring Contextual Change
• 2.1.1. Impact of Climate Change on Rural Out-Migration in Burkina Faso
• 2.1.2. Impact of the Business Cycle on Urban Emigration in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire
• 2.2. Impact of Local Development Level on Migration to Major Towns in Burkina Faso
• 3. The Transitions of Individuals’ Contexts
• 3.1. Changes in Urban Contexts and Intra-Urban Residential Trajectories
• 3.1.1. Transitions in Urban Context: Changes in the Social Composition of Neighbourhoods in Bogotá Between 1973 and 1993
• 3.1.2. Contextual Trajectories and Individual Trajectories: a Cartographic Approach
• 3.2. Individual Contextual Trajectories
• 3.2.1. Contextual Trajectories Differ According to Individuals’ Characteristics
• 3.2.2. Residential Mobility and Individual Contextual Trajectories: Complex Relationships
• Conclusion