The Life of Property; Table of Contents; Preface and Acknowledgements; Introduction; Chapter 1: The Discovery of the Pyrenean Family; Chapter 2: Continuity Over Time; Chapter 3: The Contemporary Béarnais Farming Family; Chapter 4: Local Politics and Land Use; Chapter 5: Marriage, Inheritance and Social Change in a Gascon Novel; Chapter 6: Bourdieu's Béarnais Ethnography; Chapter 7: The Life of Property; Bibliography; Index
Summary
In Béarn, a region of south-west France, longstanding and resilient ideas of property and practices of inheritance control the destinies of those living in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Based on extensive fieldwork and archival research that combines ethnography and intellectual history, this study explores the long-term continuities of this particular way of life within a broad framework. These local ideas have found expression twice at the national level. First, sociological arguments about the family, proposed by Frédéric Le Play, shaped debates on social reform and the repair of national
