L’ordinaire du congrès

Abstract

Seen as social constructs trade union congresses are ruled by their democratic traditions, they have their rituals and places where rival sections clash. We have analyzed a congress of the ‘Fédération de l’Éducation Nationale’ in 1991, thereby stressing the importance of the surroundings as well as the dramatization of the ceremony, the way it was organized and subsequently mamipulated. This study with a precise location has had its material reworked owing to the kind od detachment which is permitted by a retrospective point of view. It also intends to show how complementary sociological traditions are and also authors often set against one another such as Mauss, Goffman or Bourdieu.

Keywords

• Trade unionism
• Congress
• Teaching profession
• FEN
• Ritualism
• Struggles