Publications > Cahiers (English)> N° 3, december 1986

Travaux et Métiers
[Work and Jobs]

• [Work outside of the factory : tinkering or multiple job holding ?], F. Weber
• [Traditional practices and economical rationality : the case of wood-logging], A. Fortier
• [From peasant work to farmer profession : the building-up of statistics in agriculture], A. Barthez
• [Widening of social space and crisis of peasant identity], P. Champagne
• [Succession crisis in a Breton peasant family], A Rouvrais
• [Peasant condition and industrial labour market], A. Garcia

Le travail hors de l'usine : bricolage et double activité
[Work outside of the factory : tinkering or multiple job holding ?]

F. Weber

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 3, december 1986, pp 13-36

Abstract : The purpose of this paper is to show that the notion of "pluriactivity" is irrelevant to describe the actual diversity of the professional insertion of farm families. First we have to look at the non exclusively farming families as one kind of multiple job holding household ; secondly we have to locate the statuses of a single person's different activities : do we deal here with two jobs at the same level, or one job combined with tinkering or with hobbies ? As openings, I have chosen to study all of the outside-of-work activities in the factory-working population of N*, a township in Burgundy where a big metallurgist factory is settled since 1895. The ethnographic fieldwork, done between 1983 and 1984, has shown a large range of workers' activities, from gardening to farming, from festivities organizing to tinkering and black work. By emphasizing how this "work-beside-of-the-factory" is a working class pattern, we are led towards a double reversal of our perspectives : from farm to factory and from residence to work. Indeed, the sociological object becomes, instead of being the farm household with a factory worker, the workers' outside-of-work activities as a whole. At the same time, we have thrown a doubt on the classical oppositions work/leisure and making a living/passing the time.

Key-words : pluriactivity, factory worker, leisure, black work, hobby, ethnography, fieldwork, outside-of-work, Burgundy.

Pratiques traditionnelles et rationalité économique, l'exemple de l'affouage
[Traditional practices and economical rationality : the case of wood-logging]

A. Fortier

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 3, december 1986, pp 37-44

Abstract : When free wood-logging was lost likely to be at its end, new economical and social trends brought this old user law into vogue. If money has been probably acting as the main motive for this comeback, formulation given by the loggers emphasizes the traditional nature of a practice which has to bear up against some critics. Beside money-making, free wood-logging is conveying into modern society some values which hardly express themselves in the rational field of occupational work ; therein lies the difficulty to give a statement on a practice denying the antithesis between work and leisure.

Key-words : wood-logging, traditional practice, economical rationality, leisure, Ardennes.

Du labeur paysan au métier d'agriculteur : l'élaboration statistique
[From peasant work to farmer profession : the building-up of statistics in agriculture]

A. Barthez

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 3, december 1986, pp 45-72

Defining agriculture in terms of occupation does not seem easy. The family structure of agricultural production puts an unstable limit between household and professional universes and makes difficult a distinction between occupation and inactivity. The statistical definitions of farmer profession are evolving. Analysing them shows that abridgements were necessary but temporary. Referring to employment standards would imply that farmers work has already been classified. Defining this activity in terms of time requires an arbitration on the tasks to consider. "Multiactivity" and "part-time" work categories emerge. While an approach to the activity is coming hard, the impossibility to consider farmers as a profession in its full sense is standing out. Further than the way of producing, the choice of reference standards is here in question.

Key-words : statistics, terminology, work, profession, peasant, farmer, multiactivity, homework.

Elargissement de l'espace social et crise de l'identité paysanne
[Widening of social space and crisis of peasant identity]

P. Champagne

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 3, december 1986, pp 73-89

Abstract : The reproduction crisis of small and middle farmers is obviously - though not directly - related to economical factors. Children refusal to succeed their parents happens to be a refusal of their way of life. A sampling of 50-65 years-old farmers in Bresse and an inquiry among school-children of LEP and CES classes in Bresse about their professional future give the opportunity to catch various aspects of the discredit of farmer's profession among young people. This paper gives also a brief analysis of the causes of this crisis of traditional peasant identity (broadening of rural social space, emigration as well as eduction effects, and so on).

Key-words : peasantry, social reproduction, sociological inquiry, social identity, school, succession, Bresse.

La crise de la succession dans une famille paysanne bretonne
[Succession crisis in a Breton peasant family]

A Rouvrais

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 3, december 1986, pp 91-111

Abstract : Studying a Breton peasant family in its historical development from the end of the 19th century to 1985 gives an opportunity to apprehend from inside the various causes of rural emigration phenomenon. Before the Second World War almost all departures were forced. In order to palliate their small economical and cultural capital, migrants appealed to their family which provided them with material and psychological help. Afterwards, voluntary departures are increasing as a result of a speeding up "defarmerizing" process and more generally of the developing French economy and the emergence of non agriculture jobs. Requirements to become a farmer being harder to meet, the educational institution occurs more and more to be an alternative for the families.

Key-words : peasantry, family, rural depopulation, Brittany.

Condition paysanne et marché du travail industriel
[Peasant condition and industrial labour market]

A. Garcia

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 3, december 1986, pp 113-140

Abstract : Social changes in North-Eastern Brazilian big sugar plantations helped the simultaneous constitution of a rural proletariat, of a next peasantry and of drafts of workers entering the Central-South industrial labour market (Rio de Janeiro and Sao-Paulo). Migrations towards big towns contributed to speed up such changes. While helping the erosion of big owners authority (emigration being considered as an alternative to personal subjection to partners), migration has provided new opportunities of social courses : becoming an industry worker meant more than changing one's occupation because new industrial relations were bound by objective rules stating wages, working time and mutual duties. Although some migrants tied down their social fate to the industrial labour market, several managed to save money, acquire new skills and settle back in their native land as farmers or tradesmen. The present record of migrants homecoming provides an evidence against the general statement that departure towards a town (especially towards the industrial labour market) is necessarly the way from a peasant condition to a worker one. As long as every condition - especially the peasant one - is not related to its relevant social field, the multifariousness of migratory effects - especially the emergence of a new peasantry linked to the temporary insertion of some of its members in the industrial labour market - might well be left out of consideration.

Key-words : peasantry, labour market, social course, plantation, migration, worker, Brazil, Nordeste.