The dirty work

Abstract

This contribution to the clinical approach to work deals with the psychosocial « negative », with the not well-known or undervalued activities, whether they represent the essence of the practiced profession or just its undesirable or undervalued aspects. The notion of « dirty work » fostered by E.C. Hugues is heuristically fertile for the study of the organization of work not only as a social and technical division but also as a moral and psychological one. The different professional sectors studied (waste management, hospital, prison and police) represent the field of « dirty work » as essentially the activities that expose people to dirt and transgression. The focus on psychic processes underlying the tension between the realism of work and its imaginary resonance leads us to question the conditions of validation-legitimization of essential practices to the process of sublimation.