« Enquête avec fin et enquête sans fin »

Abstract

Le rapport contemporain entre travail et subjectivité témoigne malheureusement d’une accélération de la dégradation qualitative des modes d’engagement dans le travail. Si cette mise à mal du travailler est pointée depuis l’origine, il nous importe aujourd’hui de tirer les conséquences de cette amplification du point de vue de l’intervention. La première partie de ce texte sera consacrée à l’analyse de ce qui peut confiner à un tournant. Dans un deuxième temps, nous tenterons, à partir d’expériences de terrain, d’identifier l’impact de ces changements sur la pratique de l’enquête en psychodynamique du travail. Pour terminer, nous nous efforcerons d’énumérer une partie des défis pratiques et politiques qui découlent de cet état de fait.

How Much Stupidity Do Organisations Need? A Psychodynamic Perspective on Functional Stupidity

“…This notion, which forms both the heart and the crowning achievement of the theory of the psychodynamics of work, is decisive for understanding the roots of organisational stupidity. Consequently, although other articles have proposed a summary of ordinary sublimation (Dejours, 2014;Demaegdt et al, 2019), a succinct restitution is nonetheless relevant insofar as it invites us to consider the notion of organisational stupidity differently, in both its psychic and organisational roots.…”

“…At a second level, work acquires an inter-individual framework that guarantees the production of shared work norms. This level, described as 'deontic', assumes that all working rules simultaneously imply rules that are aesthetic, qualifying what is commonly called a 'well done' or 'beautiful' craft that is carried out according to the rules of the art, but also ethical, judging what is or is not allowed within the working collective (Demaegdt et al, 2019). Yet, these norms are directly, and often tacitly, elaborated by the working collectives, confirming that they are invested with a directly ethical and normative function within organisations.…”

“…This summary, albeit brief, nevertheless provides a panoramic view of the psychodynamics of work, with ordinary sublimation as the pivot of its entire architecture. Starting from the subjective and bodily experience of the worker, and from the latter's engagement with the matter of his or her work, the psychodynamics of work describes a vast network of relations that leads from the experience of the body to that of the construction of ethical and moral norms at work, and finally to the very nature of social relations between individuals at the political level (Demaegdt et al, 2019). In this way, we can see how the highly virtuous dynamics of ordinary sublimation prove to be all the more precarious as they are exposed, along this sinuous circuit of sublimation, to numerous hindrances that are properly 'anti-sublimatory'.…”

“…The spectrum of these defensive modalities can be very broad, and confusing to say the least. It is not uncommon to see denial rubbing shoulders with the most cynical humour, in an atmosphere of morbid exuberance, or forms of over-investment in the task that can pass for great efficiency (Dejours, 2005), while sometimes the exaltation of risk and suffering itself are set up as a working culture, in the case of professions exposed to physical risks (Demaegdt et al, 2019;Duarte, 2018;Molinier, 2006Molinier, , 2010.…”