Book
French
ID: <
10670/1.0pt5bi>
Abstract
As a societal challenge, public utility has been located into the firing line of the French political system for two decades and has been undergoing historical changes. Beyond main theory analyses and injunctions about public service, how can such a modernization process take place ? How are daily practices from the staff and the users being confronted with such a modernization process ? As an anthropologist of firms, I decided to select the Public Transportation Company of Marseilles as a fieldwork which seemed to tune with such an issue. I therefore conducted a diachronic investigation about the process linked to the modernization of this public company. Through this ten-year long fieldwork, I gave the priority to participant observation by occupying several jobs within the enterprise. This paper unwinds the guiding thread among which each upbeat – company history, social conflict (year 1995 strike), technological changes (ticketing), feeling of insecurity – only gets a meaning through its preceding steps. These upbeats do not match with a simple following of steps but tune with a holist and explanatory linking of social dynamics implemented by the modernization process.