Conscience politique et conscience photographique

Abstract

After many years spent sorting and indexing photographs from labour union archives, Xavier Nerrière aims at bringing out the interest of the concept of self-representation, in the scientific as well as in the patrimonial field. These pictures by the workers, in their workplaces (be it at work or during social conflicts) and their own, represent a complex subject of study which has to be accompanied by metadata: who took these pictures, when, in what circumstances, why, what for? With such information, the prospects of questioning and of research are compounded. The author develops four specific cases of labour activists, either from the political or from the associative sector (the issues being quite similar). These four people have accepted to leave some of their photographical data to the Institute of Labour History of Nantes (Centre d’histoire du travail de Nantes) and specify their motivations.

Keywords

• amateur photography
• self representation
• working class culture
• working class
• heritage
• social struggles