Travail temporaire et politiques migratoires en Europe: le cas des « saisonnier-ère-s » en Suisse (1949-2002).

The dissertation discusses the role and the condition of temporary foreign workers in an evolving economical, social and cultural context by focusing on the case of “seasonal workers” and their families in Switzerland in the second half of the XXth century. The interest consists in replacing the long lasting immigrant worker’s status within a wider immigration policy while considering the social costs of this condition.

At a micro level, the research combines the analysis of the political and institutional structure with the individual trajectories. Thus, the dissertation is grounded on different types of sources: not only institutional documents and unions’ reports, but also oral interviews and media materials.

At a macro level, the Swiss case is put into perspective by a comparison with European immigration and temporary work policies. Immigration seems the perfect topic in order to free Swiss historiography from the « Sonderfall » and finally integrate Switzerland into a European area of complex interactions.

The dissertation challenges various cleavages in content and methodology: it discusses the arguable distinction between legal and illegal immigration; furthermore, it testifies the invisibility of temporary immigrant women. As for the method, I will underline on one hand the link between institutional structure, political actors and individual paths; on the other the tension between nation-state and regional areas in understanding migrations.