Investigating seasonal workers: Contributions and limits of immersion in farming enterprises

Abstract

How can we accurately account for the practices, representations and interactions of a vulnerable population? By focusing on the immersions carried out during our thesis with foreign seasonal workers in large agricultural enterprises, we propose first to analyze the way in which this method allowed us to abandon our position as outsiders by adopting the existing categories in the social space we studied. In a second step, we return to the limits and tensions of immersion, showing that one of the risks consists in thinking that reality “gives itself to be seen”. It is not enough to “do” and “do with” to “be”.