Pierre Naville y la otra sociología del trabajo

Abstract

This paper tries to draw a new perspective on Pierre Naville’s work, essential for the consolidation of the Sociology of Labour in France but nevertheless almost unknown and frequently misunderstood in Spain. Our interpretation is based on the debates held by Naville with his collaborators about the theoretical and methodological positions adopted by this branch of studies at the very first moment of its institutionalization in the sixties. These debates can be summarized in three main lines: (1) the criticism to the reduction of the object «work» into «post, process and situation». (2) The questioning of the analytical frame which studied the evolution of «work» taking for granted the natural unity among the producer, his tool, his activity and his product, unity represented by the craftsman. (3) The criticism to the methodological procedures that eluded both the problem of time — taking only into account the single instant— and measure —ignoring the study of salary—. These three splits contribute to shift the problem of waged labour from the technical and organizational conformation of posts and processes of work and the social and institutional forms of employments and socially built job markets, to the relationships between works and work force, posts and jobs, technical and social divisions of work, considering that this relationships structure the subject’s life (times of work/leisure/recovering). Finally, we argue that this shift can be useful to outline a theoretical link between the two shores existing in current European Sociology of Labour: a Sociology based in the work situation and a Sociology based in the labour market