WORKLOG

Split between contradictory narratives –disappearance vs. great return – social scientists display a complex relationship to the working class as a subject of study. De-industrialization did not occur, but the transformations within Western economies have changed this social group. This leads us to renew our analytical framework. The main objective of the WORKLOG project is to impulse such a renewal by developing an original approach, which combines sociology of work, employment and lifestyles with urban studies. The starting point of the WORKLOG project are new forms of work organization and "proletarianization" of the tertiary sector. We focus on workers in logistics that occupy an intermediate position between industry and services and represent 1.5 million jobs in France and an equal amount in Germany (i.e. 13 % of total worker's employment in France). In the retail's sector, their work consists in getting the goods into cities, which is a core function for urban lifestyle. Having identified this group, we aim to understand what workers’ social practices outside warehouses are. Observing their residential areas, consumption practices and leisure activities, we aim to analyze how they create their own social spaces and to what extend they are autonomous or open to other influences. We see connections with other social groups, including dominant social groups, as a part of identity-building processes. First, we aim to show that logistic working class members create meaningful and consistent cultural universes despite that the latter are geographically and socially disseminated. Second, our ambition is to identify how similar social conditions and cultural circulations generate social forms that make sense together from the local to the international level. Empirical investigation of both hypotheses will be based on an ethnographic survey. Four samples of 20 employees each (a total of 80 employees) will be selected. They concern logistic parks and their workers in four cities: Paris, Orleans, Frankfurt/Main and Kassel. The first originality of the study is the use workplaces as an entry for fieldwork. Using this approach, we observe a limited group whose members share similar working conditions and we can analyze how those conditions affect their consumption and residential practices and leisure activities. The second originality is to conduct our investigation in two "world cities" and in their satellites. We will identify and analyze connections between “centers” and "peripheries", from the local to the international level. The third originality is to combine classical ethnography (interviews and participant observation) with a visual ethnographic method consisting in the production and collection of images (especially photography). This approach aims to report material and cultural universes for each field and to define what sort of visual references and categories of thought and judgment circulate among them and sometimes beyond. The WORKLOG project will include two phases. We will first map and compare residential and consumption practices and leisure activities. With the household as a unit of analysis we will compare forms of belonging within each single samples and across our different samples. Second, we will identify a set of practices common to our different samples, for example a sport, such as cycling or a hobby such as online video games. This will enable us to identify images and thought patterns that are interchanged by groups, both locally and globally, and that interrelate working class universes within and across social groups.