French sociology of work and labor: From shop floor to labor markets to networked careers

Concentrating mostly on France, this paper considers the changing interests and the renewal of academic alliances in the sociology of work and labor over the last 50 years. Three periods result from the combined dynamics of sociology's internal agenda and societal changes: (1) analysis of blue-collar labor as the downgrading process of complete work in taylorist industry; (2) sociology of labor markets and employment, and analysis of the bargaining processes of rules, identities and the value of work; (3) reconciliation of work and labor in distributed and flexible organizations, based on mobile and involved workers.