Trajectories and social relations: urban area as a resource and a constraint
Authors: Chauvac Nathalie , Hugues Fanny 
Published: July 2024

What does the place of residence change in the trajectory of a person who grows up or lives there, in terms of access to employment, career path? Access to employment is based on the social relations available to family and friends or on the intervention of professionals from training or support organisations, particularly at the start of a career or when a career changes direction (Chauvac 2013).Career choices are also linked to family and friends, with family and friends providing resources to find information, make contacts or receive encouragement, but also models or counter-models, influences, support or constraints (Bidart 2008). The place of residence conditions the wider environment, and can therefore have an impact on an individual's trajectory.Research conducted on the trajectories of people who grew up and/or still live in a urban area qualified as a priority in the sense of urban policy shows that they denounce an effect of assignment to low-skilled or precarious jobs, the mourning of major jobs (Zunigo 2008) and a phenomenon of discrimination. They consider that "the urban area" is a strong explanatory factor of the difficulties and obstacles encountered, more than a resource, even if this may also be the case. Analyzing pathways by taking into account social relations enables us to understand how this "urban area" effect is constructed, but also how the accumulation of social and economic difficulties that characterize the situation of the inhabitants of a priority urban area will multiply the obstacles and crises in individual pathways (Beaud 2018). Around sixty trajectories have been reconstructed using the method of quantified narratives (Grossetti 2011) and the analysis of the modes of access to employment or other resources such as training and permits, in terms of relational chains. The analysis of these trajectories highlights the importance of family social networks in the pathways, often articulated with other modes of access such as the use of devices - in longer chains than previously observed (Chauvac 2011, 2013) - as well as the complexity of certain pathways and their consequences on the lives of the respondents.The social relationships mentioned and/or mobilised by the respondents, the devices at the different stages of their career, depending on their professional situations, also show the sequence of situations. Finally, the interviews make it possible to list the social relationships mentioned and/or used by the respondents, and to characterise them partly according to their professional situations.In the end, analysis in terms of social networks sheds light on the specificities of these pathways, with the urban area functioning above all as a revealer of the impact of social conditions on all biographical transitions.

Cet article se fonde sur une recherche participative avec des jeunes habitant·e·s d’un quartier populaire de juin 2018 à juillet 2019 auprès de personnes ayant grandi ou vivant dans leur quartier et travaillant, pour comprendre leurs cheminements professionnels. Une partie des personnes interrogées ont expliqué avoir eu l’impression d’être assignées à des emplois précaires et peu valorisants, avoir dû faire preuve de plus de persévérance pour ne pas être réduites à ce futur que leurs proches, mais aussi les institutions jugeaient probable. L’analyse en termes de chaînes relationnelles, en particulier avec la méthode des narrations quantifiées, permet de comprendre comment se construisent les situations de précarité et d’exclusion et le rôle des dispositifs et des proches pour en sortir.