Dénoncer la souffrance sans perdre son âme. Solidarité paysans et la politisation du suicide des exploitants agricoles

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, numerous organizations have been involved in denouncing the impact of work on psychological health. Observers have pointed out the structural ambiguity of such a political claim. On the one hand, it legitimizes the denunciation of certain developments in working conditions. On the other hand, it is also the vector for promoting a psychological framing likely to weaken and individualize social struggles in the workplace. In this article, we show that these debates are an object of reflection within activist organizations. For them, the politicization of the mental suffering is all the more complex that this topic is constructed as a public problem and that it is promoted by political and trade-union actors with whom they are not necessarily aligned. We analyze the case of one of these organizations, Solidarité Paysans, in the face of the problem of the psychological suffering of farmers.

Keywords

• mobilizations
• agriculture
• work
• psychological health
• suicide
• politicization