Le travail détaché dans l’agriculture intensive provençale

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of time in migration and the employment processes of posted workers in intensive agriculture. We propose to analyze the relationship between the temporalities imposed by the posting of workers to meet productive needs and posted workers temporal behavior. This will enable us to understand how they experience these temporalities, but also how they circumvent them in order to articulate the spaces-time of social reproduction. Our research is based on a qualitative survey on posted workers provided by Spanish employment agencies in three departments of the South of France (Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse and Gard). The analysis is structured around migratory paths, posted work system and social times. Thus we are able (1) to understand the effects of migration policies on seasonal workers’ long-term career paths ; (2) to chart strategies for overcoming the time restrictions of posted work mobilty, which lead to settlement and direct employment ; (3) to identify attempts of “community building” through commercial and collective leisure activities developed by migrant workers.