Books & ideas

Ecologists, Let's Get to Work!

Bertrand Vaillant — 2025-09-30T12:39:59Z

How can we reconcile the working classes with ecology? By reminding ecologists of the need to address together production and consumption. Doing so would lead to the constitution of “biocommunism,” the fundamental concepts of which are outlined by Paul Guillibert.

Going postal: An anthropology of postal work in France

Nadège Vezinat — 2023-05-30T13:01:23Z

Nicolas Jounin's undercover immersive fieldwork takes the reader on a postal worker's route, one week before his office was reorganized—when he had only a week's seniority.

Salutary Slowness

Côme Souchier — 2023-03-02T07:22:00Z

Slowness is no mere lack of speed, but rather the highest degree of resistance to a world that is spiraling out of control and trying to drag people into an endless race towards acceleration.

Emotions at Work

Lauren A. Rivera — 2020-11-02T08:00:00Z

Are hiring decisions based on objective facts and rational thinking? Contrary to what portrayals of homo economicus suggest, emotion is a fundamental basis of decision-making. This is especially true when it comes to candidate evaluation, as Lauren Rivera shows in her study of the recruitment process in elite professional service firms.

Working in China in the Covid-19 Era

2020-05-25T07:00:00Z

China managed to maintain a certain amount of economic activity during the lockdown, but at what cost and under what conditions? This article highlights the regime's use of the media alongside the political and market logics specific to China.

Regulating Globalisation

Sylvain Maechler — 2020-04-23T07:00:00Z

The excesses of globalisation, including labour exploitation and environmental degradation in global industries, are often seen as the result of a lack of rules. Tim Bartley shows that these rules exist and overlap—they are just failing because they ignore the context in which they operate.

The Invisible Museum

Yaël Kreplak — 2020-04-16T07:00:00Z

Though primarily a visual experience, the museum nonetheless depends on a number of invisible tasks. V.A. Lépinay's book uses the Hermitage Museum as a field of investigation and reveals the scientific work done on the collections, their composition and their presentation to the public

Fortunetellers and Teahouse Workers

Di Wang — 2020-04-09T07:00:00Z

Is there a better way than drinking tea and chatting in a local teahouse to get a sense of everyday life in Sichuan's capital city? A historian of Chengdu and tea culture explains the role of teahouses in public life and the business opportunities they offer to migrant workers.

Cannibal Machine

Martin Gibert — 2020-01-23T08:00:00Z

Are intelligent machines attacking human labor? In his study of the digital labor hiding behind the promises of automation and robots, Antonio Casilli notably argues that social media constitute a form of unpaid work.

Well Structured Thinking

Olivier Crasset — 2019-11-18T08:00:00Z

Could craftwork, which is too often denigrated, be a model not only for intellectual life, but also for reforming contemporary forms of work? This is the position of a young lawyer and philosopher who took a professional detour by learning the carpenter's trade.