The first part under the headline ‘Theory and the construction of the research object’ will clarify our concept of theory and the Bourdieusian and Wacquantian way of working with theory and theoretical constructions when doing empirical and historical work as basis for the article’s chain of reasoning.
The second part titled ‘Theoretical concepts: State, Profession, Immigrant’ aims at presenting and clarifying the triad ‘state – profession – immigrant’ through the conceptual lens of state as a bureaucratic field and state-crafting.
The third part designated ‘Working with historical sources’ consists of three subsections altogether. The first addresses in brief the question of putting the theoretical model into work empirically focussing on the concept of field to avoid determinism and presentism when working with a com-prehensive theoretical framework. The second and third subsections takes the reader into the very ‘engine room’ of historical research using the work with interview data and archival data, alt-hough actual research findings are left out. The conclusion sums up the findings of the article and communicates the lessons learned from this research endeavour.