T. Beauvisage, J.-S.Beuscart et K. Mellet

i3 seminar “Analysis of online participation” will welcome

Thomas Beauvisage, Jean-Samuel Beuscart

and Kevin Mellet

Numérique et travail à-côté

Enquête exploratoire sur les travailleurs de l’économie collaborative

[The Sharing Economy between Work and Leisure: An Exploratory Inquiry]

Abstract: “Over the last decade, platforms in the “sharing” economy have enabled private individuals to sell or lease their goods, skills or labour through online services. This article seeks to describe the activities that these individuals pursue on such platforms, and to account for the meanings they give them. We build upon fieldwork that combines quantitative data analysis and interviews with suppliers on three websites (A Little Market, Drivy, Welkeys). We show that sharing economy platforms are only marginally a place for full-time work but instead provide a space where varied and pluralistic forms of activity unfold, at the overlap between the spheres of work and leisure. The core of the activity on sharing platforms appears to be a renewed form of the side jobs (“travail à-côté”) studied by Florence Weber or the alternative forms of work (“autre travail”) highlighted by Patrice Flichy, part of it linked closely with individual career paths and the labour market (entrepreneurship, transitions), another part associated with hobbies, leisure and the domestic economy.”

Thomas Beauvisage and Kevin Mellet are sociologists at the SENSE (Sociology and Economics of Networks and Services) department at Orange Labs. Jean-Samuel Beuscart is a sociologist at Orange Labs and associate researcher at LISIS (CNRS/Université de Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée).

Paper: Beauvisage T., Beuscart J. et Mellet K. (2018), Numérique et travail à-côté. Enquête exploratoire sur les travailleurs de l’économie collaborative, Sociologie du travail, vol. 60, 2, pp. 1‑22.

i3 seminar “Analysis of online participation”

The “Analysis of Online Participation” (APeL) seminar aims to develop reflection on approaches to the use of data about the online usage and  participation. The seminar is a place for researchers from various backgrounds to meet and exchange knowledge, practices and know-how. At each session, the seminar guests present and discuss the “making of” of one of their researches: construction of the survey, specificities of the data engineering implemented, tools for capturing / building corpora, analysis strategies and tools used, etc.

Information and registration

The seminar is open to all. Please register here to participate in this session.

Date: January 31, 2019, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

Venue: Mines ParisTech, 60 Bd St Michel, 75006Paris (room St Jacques)

Contact: Alexandre Mallard or Valérie Beaudoin

Find out more about the programme and the rules of the seminar

Photo source: i3-cnrs