Figures de la singularité dans le monde ouvrier militant en France (seconde moitié du xxe siècle)

Abstract

The author proposes to investigate the issue of singularity through the trajectories of young workers who became CGT militants in the 1968s. Through an ethnographic approach paying attention to individuals’ discourse and to the meaning they give to their actions, she underlines different processes of singularization taking place in particular social circumstances. The article focuses on three cases: in the first case, very young workers joined street protests with Trotskyist activists because they wanted to change their social conditions. They took advantage of the social outbreak of May-June 1968 to set free from trade-unionist workers; secondly, a young woman worker invented new ways of protesting within her factory, going both against trade-unions male norms and against working women’s norms. Thirdly, a CGT militant woman worker reoriented her commitment after the encounter with a scientist and started campaigning for the right to health. These participants built their singularity outside their family and social environments because they took advantage of both circumstances and physical and intellectual encounters. In the field of labor activism, singularity arises when actors assert their individual identity while embodying collective values and claims.

Keywords

• emancipation
• agency
• singularity
• May-June 68
• sixty-eight years
• worker commitments