Comment transformer un produit en marchandise et lui attribuer un prix : le traitement de la viande dans la grande distribution

Several social science studies have described the conditions under which goods and services become merchandise. In 2002, Sociologie du travail [Sociologie du travail 44 (2002) 255-287] presented contrasting approaches to “quality” by focusing on the processes of identifying and evaluating goods. Approaching this question from the angle of meat-packing provides us with means for accurately describing the relevant operations in this commodification as well as the way that mass marketing has shaped the two aforementioned processes. By leaving aside operations specifically intended for customers and concentrating on those used in mass marketing, we see how meat is “objectified” as it circulates, and how its value and price depend on processing the data ensuing from this objectification.     

Les représentations professionnelles en question. Le cas des intermédiaires dans les fusions-acquisitions

One sector of finance, relatively unfamiliar to the public, has nevertheless been growing fast for the last 30 years. This sector, known as M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions), specialises in the sale or purchase of companies. The middlemen who carry out the transactions are not the owners of the companies they buy or sell. They perform a set of socially divided and organised tasks and possess specific expertise. This article seeks to analyse these financial middlemen as workers, and in particular to understand their professional representation of the companies that they help to buy or sell. We show that the people working in this sector share a commodified, quantitative and abstract representation of the companies bought and sold. Through an analysis of activity, professional rhetoric, socialisation processes and career dynamics, the article shows how the homogeneity of this representation is constructed and maintained.