La signature œnologique: frontières et transferts de réputation chez les consultants vitivinicoles

The category of consultants provides a convenient way to describe how work is organized in the Bordeaux wines classified as grands crus and, also, to study theoretical questions such as the relation between individual and organizational reputations or the incorporation of symbolic assets. Following a presentation of consultancy in the wine industry, questions arise about how the “oenological signature” enters into the operation of the labor market for consultants. This signature, while it is a source of reputation that can be transferred to producer organizations, is an asset that consultants have difficulty assuming because of the importance of the soil and vintage in the making of reputations in the wine industry.     

Les pratiques d’enseignement dans l’université de masse : les premiers cycles universitaires se scolarisent-ils ?

The practices of faculty members who teach courses during the freshman and sophomore years in universities are described at a time when the French system of higher education is becoming more dualistic and when we increasingly hear that the indicators of academic failure—especially high during these 2 years—must be brought down. After presenting the concepts of a “scholastic” and an “academic” transmission of knowledge and teacher-student relationship, a survey in the field is used to test the hypothesis of a “scholarization” of the diploma (DEUG) obtained after these 2 years. There are, indeed, trends toward this “scholarization”, which is described: both its generalized expressions (for instance, the psychologization of practices) and its variations by discipline. However, they are still superficial and not very effective. They are superposed on a strong orientation toward research and the reproduction of researchers. Ultimately, members of the faculty teach while considering that the first 2 years of higher education correspond to a phase of latency.     

Maux du travail : dégradation, recomposition ou illusion ?

In recent years, the attention of French public opinion has been focused on the noxious effects of new ways of organizing work. Stress, “suffering”, burnout, psychosocial risks and suicides are topics that have brought experts, the media and politicians into action. What do the social sciences have to say about this? Among the several reactions presented, the principal contrast arises between those who analyze the ills of work as “social constructions” and those who see them as the implications of a trend toward intensifying job-related activities.     

Le fan comme travailleur : les activités méconnues d’un coproducteur dévoué

We can no longer take fans to be mere consumers of art and entertainment. Given their wide range of involvement (fan clubs, street teams, digital communities…), they are producers as well. In this respect, fans are not just an economic resource but also a work force. Various forms of cooperation between fans and the “cultural industry” are examined. Attention is drawn to their limits and to the consequences in this branch of the economy, which is undergoing a crisis.     

Gouverner l’environnement dans les villes européennes: des configurations d’acteurs restructurées pour la production des politiques urbaines

This article focuses on the evolution of the actors involved in environmental decision-making at the urban scale covering a period from the early eighties up to the present. Through the cases of Manchester (United Kingdom) and Saint-Étienne (France), we aim at showing that the shift in discourse from “local environment” to “sustainable development” lead to a dramatic change in the actors involved in the production of urban environmental policies. This evolution will be explained by a transformation of the sources of legitimacy of local political elites (with the rise of output-oriented legitimacy) and a transformation of the political resources they mobilised. This evolution could be analysed as a stronger investment of urban political elites in the “policies” dimension of their work.     

Deux définitions de la collégialité et leur articulation: le cas d’un diocèse catholique

Against the background of the conflict observed between managers and professionals, two definitions of collegiality are identified: on the one hand, as a specific organizational form (bottom up) and, on the other, as a procedure of bureaucratic management (top down). A study of networks of priests in a catholic diocese in France is used to explore how these two definitions are related. Questions are raised about the effects of a too narrow organizational rationalization that uses collegiality only as a top down, bureaucratic managerial procedure. This always entails the risk of making the work done by experts sterile because it overlooks the first type of collegiality, which is based on the nature of the nonroutine tasks that members perform jointly thanks to an endogenous organizational structure of a bottom up type.     

Neither ‘family’ nor ‘corporate’ farming: Australian tomato growers as farm family entrepreneurs

For the past two decades there has been much debate about the future of family farming. The basic question on which this debate has turned is whether current pressures on family farm systems should be understood as symptomatic of a terminal condition, in which farmers are replaced progressively by corporate ownership; or whether family farms will persist as a social formation, albeit increasingly subsumed by off-farm interests. Using evidence from the Australian processing tomato sector, this article documents the changing social and economic formation of ‘family farming’. We argue that in this industry, the appropriate way to describe farmers is through the deployment of that a new category of farming; farm family entrepreneurs. This phrase is coined to describe the situation where family units remain at the social and economic heart of farm ownership and operation, but in the context where they relate to their land-based assets through legal and financial structures characteristic of the wider economy. As this article explores, this formation seems to represent an accommodating modus operandi for farm units within neo-liberal agricultural governance. Nevertheless, however, this duality of family-based structures and capitalist entrepreneurialism inevitably provokes a series of tensions, whose resolution requires a variety of organizational strategies to be put in place.     

L'évolution du tissu social – entre nouvelles technologies et tendances socio‐économiques anciennes

Nos sociétés vivent‐elles aujourd'hui une nouvelle révolution industrielle? Les auteurs s'efforcent de répondre à cette question à partir d'une évaluation des conséquences des changements technologiques sur le tissu socio‐économique actuel, notamment sous l'angle de l'emploi, des inégalités, des conditions de travail et des relations professionnelles. Ils avancent que les processus d'innovation et la diffusion de «l'automatisation intelligente» risquent de renforcer des schémas de répartition des revenus et des rapports de force inéquitables (certains préexistants à l'arrivée des technologies et d'autres apparus au cours des trente à quarante dernières années). Ils détaillent les implications de ces évolutions sur les politiques à mettre en ?uvre.     

Trois scénarios pour l'avenir du travail

Après avoir rappelé l'histoire longue du concept de travail et les différentes significations attachées au terme au cours des siècles, l'auteure analyse le rapport des Européens à cette valeur, ainsi que les conséquences sur le travail et l'emploi du discours en vogue sur la révolution technologique et ses effets «inéluctables». Elle envisage ensuite l'avenir du travail à la lumière de trois scénarios, celui du «démantèlement du droit du travail», celui de la «révolution technologique» (qui postule la fin de l'emploi par l'automatisation) et celui de la «reconversion écologique», dernier modèle compatible avec l'impératif environnemental, mais aussi avec les attentes placées sur le travail et l'emploi.     

Family farmers and major retail chains in the Brazilian organic sector: Assessing new development pathways. A case study in a peri-urban district of São Paulo

The expansion of the organic sector in Brazil is seen as a leverage for the social emancipation of the small family farmers. Next to the traditional alternatives circuits of organic food and farming, new powerful capitalistic actors, such as supermarket chains, are rapidly entering the Brazilian organic arena. Can family farming benefit from the development of these “conventional” commercialisation circuits in the organic sector? Research undertaken in 2007, in a green belt rural community of São Paulo, shows how family farmers may have benefited from the implication of large retail chains in the organic sector and how an economically and ecologically outstanding agriculture may arise from these circumstances. However, we highlight the crucial role played by social regulation: only strong solidarity between farmers and the implication of technicians, militants and researchers in the process made it possible to counter the negative effects of the liberal logic governing the development of organic farming via the major retailers. Still, as tougher competition is expected on the regional organic market, the development of short supply chains involving “committed” consumers and the broader integration of the local farmers in networks of organic militancy appear crucial. It would guarantee a continuous enhancement of the local human and social capital, reinforce an emerging process of internal conversion and allow for a stronger social regulation of the future local development pattern.     

Making the most of the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report

The principal findings of the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report (Lord Laming, 2003) repeat those of most previous fatal child abuse inquiries or reviews, revealing problems with professionals' assessments, communications, skill base and resources. There is a danger that the recommendations of this latest report will be implemented in an overbureaucratic manner, reducing their potential to make a significant difference to practice. Instead, it is essential to build on the core lessons of this and previous inquiries, which is that professionals' capacity to think about their cases and their work must be enhanced. This has considerable implications for the training of professionals and the resources available to them. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Montée en qualification et modification de la répartition au sein de la chaîne de valeur mondiale du secteur de l’électronique

Le secteur de l’électronique repose sur une chaîne de production mondiale particulièrement complexe. Les auteurs s'appuient sur des données de la base WIOD pour la période 2000–2014 afin d'apprécier la contribution des pays à cette chaîne de valeur. Ils examinent notamment l'incidence de la crise financière mondiale de 2007–2008 sur son évolution et établissent une cartographie des interactions internationales. L’étude révèle une augmentation des délocalisations depuis la crise financière, la Chine et d'autres pays d'Asie de l'Est étant devenus les principaux pôles de création de valeur. Elle montre aussi que les technologies de production ont connu une transformation radicale, accompagnée d'une montée en qualification.     

Inégalités et mondialisation financière: le rapport qui tombe à pic

Cette note présente la nouvelle publication annuelle de l'Institut international d'études sociales de l'OIT, le Rapport mondial sur le travail 2008, dont le thème est les inégalités de revenu à l'épreuve de la mondialisation financière. Cette publication tombe à point nommé au moment où l'on s'inquiète de l'ampleur, de la durée et des conséquences économiques et sociales de la crise financière. Le rapport traite des déterminants de l'accroissement des inégalités de revenu, et de ses liens avec la mon‐dialisation financière, les institutions du marché du travail, les emplois – création et caractéristiques –, et les politiques de redistribution.     

Unpacking the terms of engagement with local food at the Farmers’ Market: Insights from Ontario

Amidst much discussion of the values and venues of local food, the Farmers’ Market (FM) has emerged as an important, but somewhat uncertain, site of engagement for producers, consumers and local food ‘champions’. Despite the evident certainty of various operational rules, the FM should be seen as a complex and ambiguous space where (contingent) notions of local, quality, authenticity and legitimacy find expression in communications and transactions around food. This paper seeks to extend current reflections on the nature of the contemporary FM and its relationship to the tenets of local food. An empirical analysis involving sellers, shoppers and managers at 15 markets in the Province of Ontario, Canada sought to understand how participants ‘read’ the market as an operating space and subsequently construct the terms of (their) engagement. Findings suggest that Ontario FM customers wish to support farmers and farming via their food-related spending and express attachments to a wide range of alleged benefits pertaining to local food. Yet these values are also malleable in their meaning and amenable to trade-off against other considerations—particularly where social capital is concerned. The notion of ‘local’ emerges as being widely valued but also highly interpretive in its meaning and variable in its absolute importance. The paper concludes with some reflection on the degree to which the findings support, challenge or modify current normative beliefs about local food at the FM.     

L'évaluation par le client comme méthode de surveillance: les enjeux de la réputation numérique du travailleur à la lumière du Règlement général sur la protection des données de l'Union européenne

L'évaluation du travailleur par le client ou l'employeur ainsi que la publication des avis qui en résultent constituent une méthode de contrôle et de surveillance qui pose de multiples problèmes au regard du droit européen. Sous couvert d'une approche client, elle soumet le travailleur à une surveillance de tous les instants, qui va bien au‐delà de ce qui prévaut dans un cadre de travail classique. L'auteur examine les enjeux de la question à la lumière du Règlement général sur la protection des données de l'Union européenne (UE), qui fixe des limites très précises à la collecte et la publication d'informations concernant les travailleurs.     

Mesure des effets sur l'emploi des échanges de biens intermédiaires et de produits finis

La croissance des échanges de biens intermédiaires et de services a compliqué la relation entre commerce et division du travail à l'échelle internationale. Pour trente‐neuf pays, l'auteur décompose les effets du commerce sur l'emploi selon leur origine: 1) exportations; 2) importations; 3) part des importations dans les exportations; 4) part des exportations dans les importations; 5) part des importations de pays tiers dans les importations. En 2009, quelque 88 millions d'emplois étaient imputables aux échanges de biens intermédiaires – 14 pour cent des emplois découlant des échanges –, tandis que la part des importations dans les exportations représentait 44 millions d'emplois.     

Introduction – Travail,emploi, société: que nous réserve l'avenir?

Partant de la matière de ce numéro spécial, les auteurs mettent en évidence les grands thèmes de recherche sur l'avenir du travail. Ils décrivent les mutations accélérées du monde du travail qui offrent des possibilités de croissance génératrice d'égalité, mais avec le risque de mal gérer le changement technique, les inégalités (en insistant sur le caractère intersectionnel et persistant des inégalités entre hommes et femmes), les chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales et les nouvelles possibilités de dialogue social. Partant, ils formulent des recommandations pour renforcer la protection des travailleurs et les institutions qui les représentent, revoir les cadres réglementaires et les systèmes fiscaux, et enfin assurer des transitions équitables.