Translating worlds of work: a bilingual project on scientific categories

This project examines the scientific issues involved in translating concepts and circulating approaches in the social sciences of work between France and Latin America, and involves thinking together about these issues from distinct historical and academic contexts:

• What words do we use in our work, in France and in Latin America, when we study the worlds of work?
• How do categories become universal, and how well do they match the social realities they claim to capture?

Methodology: bilingual interviews

To address these questions, the project proposes a series of bilingual (French/Spanish) interviews between researchers in France and Latin America, focusing on different notions in the social sciences of work. Click on the themes to access the videos:

• Migration
• Nature
• Precariousness
• Forced labor
• Subsistence & persistence

Simultaneous interpretation: an original device

Because epistemic expression and translation - that of points of view - take precedence over linguistic translation, the contributors from different disciplines (sociology, but also history, anthropology and political science) and different countries (Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, France) dialogue here in their original language.

Each session is then available for free access and replay in both languages.

Audience and dissemination

These dialogues aim to:

• Highlight central or emerging notions in the analysis of worlds of work.
• Participate in the internationalization of certain approaches, particularly non-Euro-centric ones, and thus reach a wider audience, both French- and Spanish-speaking.

Scientific issues more specific to the academic world animate this project:

• Produce a reflexivity on the categories of analysis (by reflecting on forms of epistemic imposition but also on possible dialogues).
• Generate a rapprochement between the French and Latin American academic communities.