Precarious Work: the Case of Masonry in Casablanca
Author: Zouhairi, Abdallah , a.zouhairi@yahoo.fr
Department: Sociology
University: Hassan 2, Morocco
Supervisor: Jamal Khalil
Year of completion: 2014
Language of dissertation: French
Keywords:
Masonry
, Precariousness
, Strategies
, Casablanca
Areas of Research:
Professional Groups
, Risk and Uncertainty
, Migration
Abstract
This thesis proposes a sociological field work on an atypical work which is masonry in Casablanca. It starts from the observation that rare are the sociological researches that have been interested in little formalized jobs with precarious workers. This research will help to better understand how workers who live in low socio-economic conditions and who have low educational level start working, become skillful, remain in the masonry, and build more or less successful professional careers. Based on a mixed method that has made use first of a qualitative sociological survey and then of a quantitative one, we have been able to identify certain aspects of the working days of masons in the building sites. The use of this mixed method is, as well, an experimental approach in the context of a methodological tradition that favors either qualitative or quantitative methods in the Moroccan social sciences. This thesis shows how the masons describe the precariousness of their lives and their work; the two most important forms of such precariousness are their life in sites and the risks related to the nature of their work. However, Masons succeed, through a hands-on learning and through some relational strategies which focus on their ethnicity to pursue careers in masonry and to increase their revenues. For Most of them, precariousness is a simple step towards their self-realization, a thing reinforced by the image they have acquired from their families in their regions of origin.
