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Sociology has established frameworks for understanding the self as it relates to an array of social spaces and institutional structures - from work and family to organisations and place. However, accounts, interpretations, and readings of subjectivity and processes of self-understanding as they occur in transition, between these spaces (the self in transition), are largely missing from the sociological canon. This thesis attempts to fill that gap by looking at the way individuals construct and maintain work-life narratives on the 'edge' of (or 'in between') those institutional anchors. Based on the transitional stories of twenty individuals who underwent dramatic changes in their careers, the thesis explores the ontological and biographical implications of selfunderstanding as the outcome of transitional experience. My focus is therefore on transition as a biographical process, and how that process (re)opens new frameworks for self-understanding and intrapersonal inquiry. My emphasis is on transition; on individuals' attempts to navigate and negotiate spaces of institutional absence. In Victor Turner's analysis of 'liminal space' (1969), transitional narratives can be understood as taking place within the socio-cultural, and institutional fissures of society. They are thus peripheral to the normative frameworks within which work-life narratives occur- such as notions of 'success', or what it means to have a 'career'. On the institutional 'edge', the individuals who navigate these spaces "arc neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial" (furner 1969: 95). At the same time, transitional space is shaped by the socio-cultural expectations normative frameworks provide. In the wake of institutional precedence my interviewees worked through lived experience - such as bereavement, personal illness, and religious discovery- to better understand themselves and the arc of their working-lives. My interviewees' narratives undermine the adequacy and accessibility of normative frameworks for personal biography. They articulated their transitions as attempts to (re)appropriate meaning and fulfilment. Dramatic change was thereby not just a means to a new job or career, but a medium through which issues of personal identity and self-understanding would be challenged and redrawn. In turn, what it meant to 'work' was no longer the sole auspice of productive or remunerative activity, but inclusive of spiritual, political, and interpersonal considerations as well. My interviewees thus employed transitional space as a medium through which to bring together these disparate areas.

This PhD research examines the development and sociological significance of the idea that work is being eliminated through the use of automated production technology. After examining historically, culturally and theoretically contested definitions of the concept of work, it looks at the idea of the abolition of work in Utopian writing, from More to Morris. Next, the argument that Karl Marx, perhaps surprisingly, can be seen as the quintessential end of work theorist, is presented.

The rise in female labour supply in developed economies has stimulated research on the combination of family and work. The aim of this thesis is to provide some empirical evidence on the factors driving family formation and mothers' employment across Europe over the period 1960-2000. After the Introduction, Chapter 2 describes a theory to explain the elements (e.g. public provided childcare, taxation system, subsidies to childcare, flexi-time at work, and unemployment rates) that affect the sign of the correlation between fertility and employment. The two subsequent chapters are both divided into two core sections: a Spanish case and a comprehensive European comparison (Belgium, West-Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden). Chapter 3 analyses how the labour market affects individual fertility decisions (i.e. marriage/cohabitation, first, second and third birth) using a Cox hazard approach. Results suggest that if we would like to reverse the declining path in fertility in Spain, we need to accomplish three main things: overturn the negative impact of female employment on childbearing through policies that facilitate reconciliation of work and family, reduce the instability of working patterns, and implement policies that raise male employment. Interestingly, the cross-country comparison reveals that Sweden is the only country where being employed encourages earlier childbearing. Chapter 4 investigates transitions from employment to non-employment around childbearing and its evolution across time. The European comparison suggests that the probabilities of staying-on employed are different across countries and these have changed substantially over the period 1973-93. This evolution is mainly explained by the taxation system (joint vs. separate), the removal of barriers to part-time work and the increase in education. Chapter 5 focuses on female employment in the UK between 1974-2002. A first section aims to quantify how much of the rise in female participation is due to changes in the structure of the female population and how much is caused by changes in behaviour. A second section investigates the rise in the employment of married mothers. We isolate those birth cohorts whose mothers experienced significant increases in employment and relate those to changes in policies (maternity rights, taxation and childcare). Maternity rights have induced a change in behaviour toward returning to work in the first year post-birth, mostly among better-educated and higher-paid mothers.

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My thesis examines moral and political responses to the character of work through critical evaluation of the work we do to sustain a stable social order suitable for human acting and being. My original contribution rests upon my application of Wolf s (2010) distinct bipartite value of meaningfulness (BVM) to the structure of action in work, which integrates the objective and subjective dimensions of meaningfulness when subjective feelings of attachment are united. to an assessment of the objective worthiness of the object. Work which is structured by the BVM is a fundamental human need, because it addresses our inescapable interests in autonomy, freedom, and social recognition, which are met when work is non-alienated, non-dominated and dignified. To realise the BVM, each person must possess the capabilities for objective valuing and affective attachment, in addition to their equal status as eo-authorities in the realm of value. Being able to participate in creating and sustaining positive values through meaning-making alleviates concerns that meaningful work is a perfectionist ideal which undermines autonomy. But meaning-making gives rise to interpretive differences over values and meanings which often remain as pre-political potentials unless brought into public deliberation through deliberative practices. I argue that realising the BVM in work requires a politics of meaningfulness generated by a system of workplace democracy, where democratic authority at the level of the organisation is combined with agonistic democratic practices at the level of the task. Furthermore, capability justice requires the satisfaction of two principles ~ the principle of egalitarian meaning, such that all persons must be able to experience their work as meaningful, and the threshold of sufficient meaning, such that work is sufficiently meaningful when constituted by the values of autonomy, freedom and social recognition. I conclude that the relevant capabilities for meaningfulness are realised, indirectly, through institutional guarantees for the Capability for Voice. Ruth Yeoman Abstract

Les salariés de l’économie sociale se sentent souvent mal reconnus et l’observation des pratiques de démocratie sociale dans leurs entreprises confirme une situation insatisfaisante. Si les réseaux et les lieux de recherche de ce secteur commencent à prendre en considération cette question, il est apparu nécessaire de comprendre les ressorts de cette choquante discordance. Dans une démarche socio-historique, la présente recherche se propose de revenir à la genèse de l’économie sociale pour y puiser des éléments de compréhension, sinon d’explication, aux réalités contemporaines. L’expérience des associations ouvrières, soutenues par la Deuxième République de 1848 à 1851, constitueront le terrain de cette recherche. Les pratiques démocratiques expérimentées, sur fond de nécessaires régulations des relations sociales et dans des relations avec un État soucieux de contrôler ces entreprises innovantes, fournissent un matériau vivant dont l’on tentera de tirer quelques enseignements utiles aux acteurs de l’économie sociale contemporaine. Ceci ne sera possible qu’au prix d’un retour sur les catégories économique et politique et sur les différents usages de la notion de démocratie sociale. Il est finalement suggéré que c’est en assumant pleinement leur double identité économique et politique que les entreprises d’économie sociale seront en capacité d’inventer des pratiques de démocratie sociale en cohérence avec ce qui est en fait un projet démocratique global. / The employees of the social economy often feel poorly recognized and observation of social democracy practices in their companies confirm an unsatisfactory situation. If the networks and the fields of research in these sites are beginning to consider this question, it appeared necessary to understand what motivates this shocking discrepancy. In a socio-historical approach, this research proposes to go back to the genesis of the social economy to draw from elements of understanding, if not an explanation, to contemporary realities.The experience of workers’ associations, supported by the Second Republic from 1848 to 1851 constitutes the location of this research. The experienced democratic practices based on necessary regulations of social relations and in relations with a state anxious to control these innovative companies, provide a living material which will attempt to draw some useful lessons to actors in the contemporary social economy. This will be possible only at the cost of a return on economic and political categories and the different uses of the concept of social democracy. It is finally suggested that in case of assuming completely their dual economic and political identity the social economy enterprises will be capacity to invent social democracy practices consistent with what is in fact a global democratic project.

Les individus sur internet font quotidiennement usage d’outils informatiques créés et mis à disposition par des personnes n’exigeant pas de contrepartie. Certains de ces outils sont dits libres (free) ou ouverts (open), ce qui signifie que leurs auteurs autorisent, via des contrats de licences spécifiques, leurs utilisations et leurs modifications par tous les utilisateurs. La plus grande partie de la littérature scientifique a, jusqu’à présent, expliqué ce phénomène au travers des hypothèses économiques d’incitations individuelles. D’après cette approche les contributeurs produisant ces outils estiment que leur participation à ces projets collectifs ont des effets positifs à court et moyen termes sur leurs carrières professionnelles. À partir d’une revue de littérature et de l’étude de trois cas empiriques (Sésamath, OWNI et VideoLan), notre thèse revient sur les hypothèses d’incitations individuelles en mettant en lumière les effets de structure à l’origine du phénomène des licences libres. Notre thèse remet la rationalité en valeur au centre de l’analyse des activités des groupes produisant des contenus libres. Au final, nous démontrons que l’existence de ces organisations ne découle pas de l’activité spontanée d’individus isolés. L’apparition et le maintien de ces collectifs constituent un processus social dans lequel interviennent des organisations privées et publiques hors-lignes dont les règles professionnelles et juridiques influencent les actions collectives en ligne. / People on the internet have a daily use of IT tools developed and broadcasted by other people who do not require compensation. Some of these tools are called free or open, meaning that their authors authorize, with specific licenses, their use and modification to all users.Most of the academic literature has so far explained this phenomenon through the economic hypothesis of the auto-regulated individual incentives. According to this approach, the contributors producing these free tools believe that their participation in collective projects have positive effects in the short and medium term on their professional careers. Based on a literature review and three empirical case studies (Sésamath, OWNI and VideoLan), our dissertation criticizes the hypothesis of individual incentives, and focuses on structure effects in the free licenses phenomenon. Our thesis highlights the importance of the substantive rationality and analyzes the activities of groups that produce free contents. We demonstrate that the existence of these organizations cannot be explained by the spontaneous activity of isolated individuals. The development and maintenance of these collectives are a social process involving off-line public and private organizations which influence online activity by their professional and legal rules.

Notre recherche intitulée « les cadres. Une population face aux mutations socioéconomiques dans un contexte postcolonial : le cas du Gabon (1970-2008) » retrace à travers les mutations sociales au Gabon et notamment par la colonisation, le «progrès » opérés sur les populations (durant des décennies de restructuration des strates sociales à la modernité intervenues dans cette partie de l’Afrique noire), l’institution scolaire et la rationalité étatique, une catégorie sociale porteuse d’une lisibilité de la société gabonaise. Cette étude tente de rendre manifeste les rapports de travail des cadres à travers les procédures de recrutement, la répartition des salaires, la mobilité sociale de cette catégorie socioprofessionnelle, leurs fonctions, les logiques de domination et de subordination d’un ordre social nouveau. Notre thèse rend compte de l’irruption de cette catégorie socioprofessionnelle dans le paysage politique et social au Gabon, de leur développement, de la manière dont les cadres se perçoivent, de la connaissance des relations qui sont à l’œuvre dans le travail, de l’influence de cette catégorie dans les rapports sociaux. Nous tentons de mettre en lumière une catégorie sociale non négligeable souvent délaissée au profit des classes ouvrières dont le positionnement et la trame qui se tissent, investissent différents champs sociaux. Par notre étude, nous essayons d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur la sociologie du « cadre » au Gabon / My research entitled « the chief executives, a population face to socio-economic change in post-colony context: the case of Gabon (1970-2008) traces through the social changes in Gabon and in particular by colonization, the restructuring of social strata, modernity, the school and state rationality, a carrier of a social category readability of Gabonese society. This study makes clear labour relations executives through recruitment, social mobility, the logic of domination and subordination of one new social order. This thesis reports the emergence of leadership in the political and social landscape in Gabon, of development, of how managers perceive knowledge of the reports which expressed at work and in other social spheres. We also try to highlight a significant social group often neglected in favour of the working classes. In this study, we try to shed new light on the sociology of the chief executives of Gabon

« Quelle sociologie pour quelle démocratie ? Rationalité politique et émancipation » a pour ambition d’interroger les liens entre l’épistémologie, la théorie sociologique et la posture ou le type d’engagement du sociologue dans la cité. Il s’agit d’explorer les conditions de possibilité d’une théorie critique, non idéologique, mais fondée en raison sociologique.Une première partie, s’appuyant sur des recherches actions, s’intéresse à la question de la participation des citoyens. Un premier exemple, une sociologie du Théâtre de l’opprimé, montre comment ce type d’intervention peut être interprété comme un dispositif de subjectivation politique. Un deuxième exemple pose la question de la participation à partir d’une tout autre conception du social. A l’occasion de l’élaboration d’un dispositif de participation citoyenne sur le territoire de Feyzin, nous avons tenté d’articuler une sociologie particulière (théorie de l’acteur-réseau) et une conception de la raison pratique (avec Vincent Descombes) pour construire une Conférence riveraine. Dans ces deux cas ce sont les liens entre paradigme sociologique et modalités d’intervention démocratique qui sont examinés. Une seconde partie, plus épistémologique, s’intéresse au fonctionnement de la discipline sociologique et présente trois tentatives d’élaboration d’une posture qui vise à mettre en son centre la notion (et la pratique) d’espace de controverse. Le premier exemple fait retour sur la Querelle allemande des sciences sociales car cette querelle est exemplaire, à la fois d’une controverse qui tente d’explorer les différents arguments disponibles, à un moment donné, mais aussi, d’un point de vue plus substantiel, pose les fondements de deux interprétations du monde social qui sont toujours actives dans les débats contemporains. Le deuxième se situe à un niveau plus théorique, et, à partir d’un colloque qui réunissait différents auteurs partisans d’une théorie de l’activité pour penser le travail, tente de mettre au jour un point de vue de l’activité qui pourrait être commun à l’ensemble de ces auteurs. L’idée est assez simple : il s’agit de contribuer à construire une cumulativité et un point d’accord dont les auteurs pourraient se revendiquer (notamment dans une perspective politique). Enfin, le troisième prend le risque d’explorer ce que l’on appelle parfois un point de vue « postanthropocentré » (ou « désanthropocentré », les termes sont bien loin d’être stabilisés) en sciences sociales. Si l’on prend au sérieux la question d’un approfondissement de la démocratie, jusqu’où peut-on (doit-on) aller dans cette direction ? Que peut signifier pour la sociologie l’idée de prendre en compte les « non-humains » ? C’est ainsi, au moyen de ces multiples angles d’attaque, que ce travail propose de déployer notre interrogation sur les relations entre épistémologie, sociologie et politique. / " What sociology for which democracy? Political rationality and emancipation " has for ambition to question the links between the epistemology, the sociological theory and the posture or the kind of commitment of the sociologist in the city. It is a question of exploring the conditions of possibility of a critical, not ideological theory, but established in sociological reason. A first part, leaning on researches-actions, is interested in the question of the participation of the citizens. A first example, a sociology of the Theater of the oppressed, shows how this type of intervention can be interpreted as a device of political subjectivation. The second example raises the question of the participation from quite a different design of the social. On the occasion of the elaboration of a device of participation citizen on the territory of Feyzin, we tried to articulate a particular sociology (theory of the actor-network) and a design of the reason has a practice (with Vincent Descombes) to build a citizen Conference. In these two cases it is the links between sociological paradigm and modalities of democratic intervention that are examined. A more epistemological, second part, is interested in the functioning of the sociological discipline and presents three attempts of elaboration of a posture which aims at putting in its center the notion (and the practice) of « space of controversy ». The first example makes return on the German Quarrel of the social sciences because this quarrel is exemplary, at the same time of a controversy which tries to explore the various available arguments, at some point, but also, from a more substantial point of view, puts the foundations of two interpretations of the social world which are always active in the contemporary debates. The second is situated at a more theoretical level, and, from a colloquium which gathered various partisan authors of a theory of the activity to think of the work, of tent to bring to light a point of view of the activity which could be common to all these authors. The idea is rather simple : it is a question of contributing to build a cumulativity and a point all right the authors of which could claim to be (in particular in a political perspective). Finally, the third takes the risk of exploring what we sometimes call a point of view " postanthropocentric" (or " desanthropocentric ", the terms are far from being stabilized) in social sciences. If we take seriously the question of a deepening of the democracy, to where do we can go in this direction? What can mean for the sociology the idea to take into account the "non-human beings" ? It is so, by means of these multiple angles of attack, that this work suggests displaying our interrogation on the relations between epistemology, sociology and politics.