Concrete Utopias in Marseille (France): When the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) inspires

The field of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), institutionalized in France by the law of 2014, has its roots in the 19th century in the tradition of the associationism movement, marked by autonomy and emancipation through work. The organizations and the meaning of the work associated with them seem to be driven by the values intrinsic to the collective project deployed, the practices associated with it and a vision of social transformation. From WISE to multi-stakeholder organizations and salaried entrepreneurs, new organizational models and forms of work are emerging as inspiring objects that hold out the promise of emancipation and alternatives. They constitute workplaces with a utopian aim (Desroches, 1991) - often in the context of social microexperiments (Paquot, 2020) - which reflect a specific relationship with the territory. From this perspective, how can we observe and analyze these new forms of work both from the point of view of the organizations that support it and the meaning of the work associated with it, both at the level of the organizations and the place of the acting subjects? And what role do forms of creativity that promote emancipation play in the organization of work? What are its spaces and the conditions for its emergence and perpetuation? Are its promises being translated into sustainable alternatives and at what cost? These questions take on their full meaning in a context where aspirations to transform society are being reaffirmed (Coutrot, Perez, 2022; Frère, Laville, 2022) in the face of the challenges of necessary transitions. We adopt a qualitative analyze built on 5 case studies in Marseille.