The principal aim of this thesis is to discover and analyse the motives that make immigrant women start their own businesses in Sweden and to investigate whether this is a way to achieve integration in working life. The empirical material consists of two types of interviews. One type consisted of interviews with five experts on labour market issues, and the other of interviews with 16 female entrepreneurs of Iranian, Chilean and Turkish origin having their own business in the Greater Stockholm region. Results from the first set of interviews indicate that female immigrants who independently start their enterprise rely mainly on their own resources of power and abilities. They are either women with class resources such as higher educations, previous work experience, language abilities and economic savings, or young women with certificates from high schools or universities. The social environment where they grew up, the gender structure and gender roles in the family before and after immigration and time of residence in Sweden also influence the extent to which women immigrants can act independently. According to the experience of the experts, the motives for starting their business are either different structural reasons, e.g. unemployment, lack of suitable or well-paying jobs, lay-offs etc, or personal reasons such as having a meaningful occupation, to support the family, to earn money of their own, to be independent from men and strive for a better standard of living etc. Results from the second set of interviews indicate that the most important resource these women have used when establishing their businesses is class resources such as education and adequate training, different types of work experiences, human capital and in addition to this economic savings. For many of the women in this sample different structural reasons, like unemployment, lack of good job opportunities, discrimination on work places, merge with personal reasons such as strivings to achieve independence, being one’s own boss, to realize one’s plans and ambitions, when starting their business. Independent entrepreneurship is a good way for immigrant women to be integrated in working life especially if they start within certain branches. These are branches in which the women have appropriate university education or vocational training, previous work experience or which correspond to their personal interests. In addition immigrant women become more integrated if an education received abroad is treated as equivalent to the parallel Swedish education or degree. A further factor promoting integration is if they can fully exploit their capacities when developing their own businesses. These conditions help them to feel much more satisfaction in working life as women identify themselves with their actual profession and feel that they have found the “right place” for themselves in the society.

No description available.

Cette thèse est construite en trois parties. La première est tout d’abord consacrée à une analyse réflexive de l’engagement ethnographique qui prend la rue comme terrain, et aux diverses formes de relation et de visibilité auquel conduit ce choix. Le cadre théorique et méthodologique affirme en particulier des positions méthodologiques et théoriques à l’égard de l’informalité. On y trouve également une acception élargie de la production, qui inclut les métiers urbains de service, ainsi que la nécessité d’étudier ensemble production et reproduction pour lire l’agencement des rapports sociaux. La seconde partie s’emploie à la reconstruction de la genèse de la division sociale du travail au Cameroun, dans un contexte colonial de « mise en valeur » et dans celui, postérieur à l’indépendance, des étapes de mutations économiques ayant affecté les logiques et formes de mise au travail des hommes et des femmes et produit une forme spécifique de séparation entre production et reproduction. En quatre périodes historiques, on y lit ainsi une généalogie des formes d’emplois urbains et des rapports sociaux qui les structurent, et tout particulièrement les rapports de sexe, de classe et de génération, inscrite dans le cadre du capitalisme global. Dans la troisième partie l’analyse du matériau empirique récolté pendant le travail de terrain et au-delà permet d’analyser les inégalités sociales à Yaoundé, de décrire des modes de vie et leurs difficultés matérielles et d’éclairer les stratégies pour faire face à la pauvreté. L’ethnographie révèle la division sociale du travail et des positions dans les métiers urbains, organisée autour de l’extorsion de surtravail sous forme de rente, sous diverses modalités, en une compétition forcenée, qui aboutit à reléguer les femmes et les enfants aux tâches de reproduction sociale, sans pour autant les écarter des tâches de production. Cette thèse de sociologie prend le parti d’inscrire l’analyse des métiers urbains dans une socio-histoire du capitalisme et de son implantation au Cameroun. Elle dépasse les catégories de travail formel / informel pour faire l’analyse matérialiste des formes de mise au travail articulée avec celle d’étudier ensemble, et non de façon dissociée, la production et la reproduction, à la lumière des rapports sociaux de sexe, de race, de classe et de génération. Cette thèse éclaire non seulement les rapports de domination et d’exploitation, mais aussi les formes de résistance et d’agencéité, au prisme de deux outils conceptuels qu’elle forge et enracine soigneusement : celui de régime libéral communautaire, et celui de rapport de rente d’exploitation. / The research relates to urban workers in Cameroon. As part of a theoretical inquiry, the manner in which we produce was given a fresh approach, in a new conception of work. To that end, the author has moved away from the tenets of the sociology of work to consider the city as a unit of production of useful services. That made it possible to widen the analysis in terms of work relations and grasp the dynamics of conflict, domination and exploitation, and also of change in the activities covered. The analysis is focussed on the forms employed in urban trades in Cameroon, by showing their characteristics. The decision to give that examination a historical perspective has made it possible to show that some trades have acquired a structuring role in the urban relations of production in Cameroon. That is true of the taxi services trade, which occupies a hegemonic place. Without being anachronistic or ethnocentric, it would appear that this area of work plays the part played by small artisans in English urban centres during the emergence of industrial capitalism in that country as described so well by E.P. Thompson. With their collective industry institutions, these workers have had a structuring role in the transformation of relations with work, and have provided leadership in social struggles. This ethnographic study in Yaoundé took place in a social atmosphere of apparent stability. Indeed, from the people’s protest movements of ‘dead cities’ in the early 1990s to the ‘hunger riots’ in 2008, Cameroon was experiencing a situation of permanent insurrection. When the author toured the country in 2010, the protests seem to have died down. That was certainly a forced break, in the face of violent repression by the government. The field work was therefore carried out during that apparent lull in 2010-2011, 2012 and 2015.The aim was to study the issue of the work and social reproduction of urban workers in Cameroon. What are its forms and determinants ? How has it changed in the course of the years since the start of development under colonial rule up to the contemporary period of structural adjustment ? How do the people get organised when they are excluded from the system of ordinary law ? The author believes that to address those questions, it is of relevance to use a sociohistorical approach that articulates work relations of class, race, gender and also generation.

Les principes néolibéraux fondés sur la mise en concurrence des individus les uns contre les autres ont contribué aux profonds bouleversements du monde du travail depuis les années 1970, autant dans ses dimensions objectives (conditions de travail) que dans ses dimensions subjectives (rapport au travail). Michel Foucault et plus tard Pierre Dardot et Christian Laval ont fait l’analyse de la généalogie de la pensée néolibérale, construisant l’idée qu’un « sujet néolibéral » allait émerger, dont la caractéristique serait l’adoption d’un ethos entrepreneurial. À l’aide d’entrevues semi-dirigées, le terrain d’analyse de la représentation pharmaceutique fut sélectionné, car il a été jugé particulièrement propice à l’émergence d’un tel ethos, alors que les entreprises de cette industrie encouragent l’adoption d’initiatives entrepreneuriales. L’analyse du corpus d’entretien a permis l’émergence de trois ethos idéal-typiques, soit « le compétitif », « la carriériste » et « le familial ». Ces ethos ont illustré la diversité des rapports au travail que nous pourrions retrouver dans la société québécoise. Ce travail de recherche permet d’avancer les réflexions critiques sur le néolibéralisme et ses répercussions sur notre rapport individuel et collectif au travail. / Neo-liberal principles based on competition between individuals against each other have contributed to the profound changes in the world of work since the 1970s, both in its objective dimensions (working conditions) and in its subjective dimensions (relationship to work). Michel Foucault and later Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval analyzed the genealogy of neo-liberal thought, constructing the idea that a "neo-liberal subject" would emerge, whose characteristic would be the adoption of an entrepreneurial ethos. Using semi-structured interviews, the field of analysis of pharmaceutical representation was selected because it was deemed particularly conducive to the emergence of such an ethos, as companies in this industry encourage the adoption of entrepreneurial initiatives. The analysis of the interview corpus led to the emergence of three ideal-typical ethos, namely "the competitive", "the careerist" and "the family man or woman". These ethos illustrated the diversity of relationships at work that we could find in Quebec society. This research work makes it possible to advance critical reflections on neoliberalism and its repercussions on our individual and collective relationship to work.