Work, meaning, and identity: A study of semi-clandestine factory interactions (France)

While our knowledge of the effects of social interactions has burgeoned in recent years, specifically with literature on social networks, less is known about the meanings of these interactions. This study relies on interviews (N=70), surveys (N=184), archival data and observations on interactions---the building blocks of social ties that get aggregated into social networks---leading to the manufacture and exchange of semi-clandestine factory artifacts to gain insight into meanings of social interactions. This study was conducted in an aeronautics factory in France (Pierreville). These semi-clandestine factory artifacts, known in English as "homers", are manufactured on company time with company materials or tools but for personal use. They are not part of the official factory production.; An analysis, first, of retirement homers given to colleagues upon their departure offers an entry point into the homer making community. It suggests clear occupational divides in patterns of who receives retirement homers. Specifically, craftsmen, a sub-group of factory members are shown to be more likely to receive retirement homers. Whereas homer interactions might be framed as theft, factory members maintain clear boundaries between theft and homer interactions that allow craftsmen to rely on these homer interactions to exhibit, among themselves, respect and recognition. However, homer interactions are shown to carry distinct meanings---namely also "jobs or regular work", "collegiality" and "exchanges"---depending on participants' and recipients' statuses. Statuses imbue the interactions that create these homers with differences with respect to their meanings, morality, and legitimacy.; These variations in meaning gain further salience in the context of heightened identity threats around craftsmen. As the industrial process shifts, the dwindling population of craftsmen is pressed to find relevance for their work. Some homer interactions, specifically the ones narrated as conveying respect and recognition, are shown to sustain the identity of these craftsmen.; This research shows that a given interaction type carries various meanings despite having the same concrete outcome. These findings question assumptions of interaction homogeneity in social network research. They also document ways in which morality and dignity are constructed within given occupational communities, specifically when these communities are disappearing.