Introduction : Labour, between acting and suffering[Introduction : Le travail, entre agir et pâtir]

Throughout the history of thought, from the depths of the Greek age, from Hesiod onwards, as well as in the biblical tradition, we find traces of the ambivalence of labour, a bipolarity inscribed at the very heart of the labour experience. labour is an activity that is sometimes classified as action, or even creation, in what these registers contain that is eminently positive for the human being, and sometimes as misfortune and necessity, reminding us of our finiteness; sometimes it is considered as a punishment, a calamity, an accidental or principal misfortune, and sometimes as a means of salvation, of liberation, of access to the ethical sphere, to the fullness of life. Beyond their diversity of approach and field, the studies gathered in this issue are united in the requirement to honour the bipolarity of acting and suffering that characterises the question (questions) of work. It is to the analysis of this bipolarity, or ambivalence, of the labour experience that we have devoted this introduction, while at the same time questioning the 'place' (meaning, value, reaffirmation or loss of its centrality) that labour occupies in our societies.