Many of North America’s francophones live and work in large Anglophone cities, immersed in overwhelming English-speaking environments, yet they manage to keep their language and culture alive. In this study Robert A. Stebbins finds that francophone culture in Calgary flourishes primarily through leisure activities.
Stebbins was a participant and an observer in Calgary’s French community between 1987 and 1992. In 1992 he conducted unstructured interviews in French with eighty-five adult respondents, focusing on their patterns of everyday personal and collective life. His book reveals that in large cities such as Calgary, francophone populations form communities through social and cultural organization rather than geographical association. In these circumstances, family, household, school, and leisure activities are key to maintaining French language and culture and promoting individual and community development.
This is the first ethnographic study of the francophone community of a major Anglophone urban centre in Canada. Stebbins presents an objective but sympathetic analysis in a fluid and engaging style. His work provides a prototype for the analysis of francophone communities in Anglophone cities.
