According to figured published in the le Monde newspaper in November, about a quarter of those who left to join the jihadists were converts to Islam, with many coming from everyday French backgrounds.
The interviews were loosely structured around themes including the participants' background, everyday activities, home and neighbourhood, wellbeing and aspirations.
Terkel's obsessive interest in the propulsion of people's lives was at its most curious and passionate — and his subjects at their most brilliantly articulate — when he was dealing with everyday people, from whatever background: carpenters, judges, hub-cap fitters, priests, admirals, sharecroppers, models, signalmen, tennis players, war veterans and cooks.
Tourists who visit New York must have a similar problem, seeing the city not as the familiar background to everyday life but as a picture postcard or TV drama, as if the city for them were a film -- a performance -- rather than a place.
The relationship between capitalism and humanitarianism is essentially invisible now:The ideas it depends on have become part of the background of everyday life.
This requires an ongoing suspicion and scepticism (rather than cynicism) toward seemingly 'ubiquitous' technologies that are all too easy to take for-granted as they recede into the background of everyday life.
The KR officials allowed them to stay but kept coming back, documenting my family background almost everyday for a month, searching for inconsistencies and reasons to distrust my family.
Effortless concentration and enjoyment Complete immersion there is no room in your awareness for conflicts or contradictions Flashes of intense living against the dull background of everyday life Effortless action that some people feel stand out as the best in their lives.
At the heart of the program were the stories of four everyday families of different backgrounds who told stories of lost health care benefits, the necessities of food rationing and the need to hold more than one job.
