Thoughts/Discussion on points made in these

The work of the consumer seen from the sociological viewpoint European and American sociological literature about the "work" of the con- sumer has been preceded by other concepts. As early as 1815, an economist observed that cooperation was necessary between producer and consumer in service operations (Storch, 1815). This hypothesis was taken up to show the operational participation of the consumer in service production (Barnard, 1938; Parsons, 1970). The consumer is a "factor of production" (Fuch, 1968) and influences productivity. European and American sociologists of work continued to study "coproduction" in the service sector (Bell, 1976), in hospitals (Album, 1989; Goffman, 1991; Hugues, 1976), transport (Hochschild, 1983), call centers (Abraham, 2008), and supermarkets (Cochoy, 2007), to name just a few areas. Note that here the activity of the consumer is mostly observed from the per- spective of the professional. Note also that in a sociological appraisal of service interactions, the activity of the consumer beyond these boundaries, in non-relational services, cannot be observed, even though this type of service is becoming increasingly common. Toffler (1980) observed the phenomenon of active participation on the part of consumers and introduced, with little - theoretical specification - the neologism "prosumer," to suggest the synthesis between production and consumption when consumers customize the products, and sometime design it. While Italian autono- mists (Negri, 1989; Virno and Hardt, 1996) analyzed the displacement of produc- tion from the factory toward society, with the concept of the "social factory," Ritzer (1998), using the case of Mcdonald's, showed that the customer carried out a number of productive tasks to obtain his meal, which thus benefited the company. For him, consumers do work. This observation has also been made in Europe, by French (Dujarier, 2008; Tiffon, 2012) and German sociologists, who refer to consumers' "poor working conditions" (Dunkel and VoB, 2004). Sociological analysis of consumers' activity has been revitalized since 2000, in relation to Web 2.0 practices. Authors note the growth in immaterial organizationsthat persuade Internet users to carry out productive activities, without paying them (Arvidsson, 2006). The changing relations between the production and the con sumption of Internet content in Web 2.0 (Beer and Burrow, 2007; Newman, 2010; Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010; Scholtz, 2013) mark the arrival of a new capitalism. It is a \"fundamental change" in economic organization (Humphreys and Grayson, 2008). Other authors speak of \"free labor\" (Terranova, 2000), \"working con sumers\" (Kleemann et al., 2008; Rieder and V013, 2010; V03 and Rieder, 2005), \"voluntary workers" (Dujarier, 2008), or more recently \"unpaid labor\" (Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010). From a sociology of work viewpoint, the merging concept of \"work consumer\" suffers from two uncertainties. First, various such activities and social division of tasks make it necessary to create \"sociological types" (Weber, 1978) of work con- sumers. Second, it questions the concept of \"work" and the pertinence of using it in this context. Theoretical frame and research method Sociological observation of consumption poses a methodological problem from the outset due to the empirical scale that the subject has now acquired with the expan sion of commodication. As Warde (2005) noticed, before arguing for an analysis of practices, in sociology \"output seems to have been bi-polar, generating either abstract and speculative social theory or detailed case studies\" (Warde, 2005: 131132). On the one hand, generalizations are mainly based on \"examples\"; on the other hand, they seem very daring. Our sociological approach tries to resolve this dilemma by paying specic attention to the social processes at work in production relations between rms and consumers, where the theoretical frame is based on consumers\" productive activity. More than the sociology of consumption, 1 make reference here to the theories and methodologies of the sociology of work as used by French-speaking ergono- mists (Daniellou, 2005), paying specic attention to activity, in other words, to what the consumer does. I describe and analyze its four analytical dimensions: prescribed work (what consumers are asked to do, and how: the social division of tasks, \"'management\"), the actual work (what he actually does in order to pro duce/consume), the work carried out (what he ultimately achieves, output), and nally, the work experience (the meaning given to the situation and to his activity). In addition, discourse (even scientic discourse) and managerial practices are stu died sociologically, as social practices and as work. In this qualitative research using multiple case studies, I applied two traditional sampling criteria: empirical and theoretical diversication and saturation (Denzin, 1970; Glaser and Strauss, 1967). I therefore endeavored to increase the number of observations and interviews in cases where consumers coproduce, and I closed the survey when all new elements simply conrmed previous observations in terms of social processes and typology, and provided no new properties to the concept of \"work.\" 558 journal of Consumer Culture 16(2) Three survey methods were used to dene the consumer's prescribed work. Applying the same method used by Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) to capture the spirit of contemporary capitalism, I carried out a sociological analysis of con temporary discourse in management eld. This sample of \"indigenous\" discourse was selected for its proximity to the subject (work consumer), taken from market ing and management journals published in English, from the 19803 to 2013. Using this search criterion, I compiled a corpus of 60 documents1 dealing with the activity of the consumer in production. I extracted technical aspects (organization of the work of the consumer seen from the management side) and also normative and prescriptive sections. I then carried out comprehensive interviews with 12 market ing managers so as to understand the viewpoint of the professionals in charge of organizing consumer work. Finally, I carried out a systematic observation of the actual prescriptions given to consumers in a range of situations. The method also took on an ethnographic element when observing and char acterizing consumers' prescribed, actual. and achieved activity. For 5 years, I sys tematically took notes as a \"participating observer\" (Brewer, 2000) in a wide range of sectors (large and small retailers, transport, medicine, telecommunications, tour ism, administration, insurance, culture, and website) in these activity dimensions. I therefore used an existing social role (being a consumer) as a resource for the research (Brewer, 2000). I did this in 10 major cities in western Europe (the Hague, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Geneva, London, Madrid, Athens, Rome, Lisbon) and in the United States (Los Angeles, New York). In my observations, I systematically noted the form of the work prescribed by both written (on screens, stickers, dis- plays, etc.) and verbal discourse, also the visible and audible behavior of the pro- plays, etc.) and verbal discourse, also the visible and audible behavior of the pro- fessionals and the consumers in the situation: I noted the way they went about the task, their comments, their behavior, and the relations (conicts, cooperation, coordination) that were involved. After observing them, I questioned them about their interpretation of the productive conguration and their activity (83 inter- views) to obtain some more probing empirical data on the work consumers actually carried out and their experience of it. Afterward, I broadened my consumption habits in order to test a wider range of suppliers and products. Although not claiming to be exhaustive (our sample is concentrated on urban, middleclass, and daily consumptions), this approach nevertheless provided me with thousands of pages of empirical observations. It covered most of the acts of consumption by a citizen for his daily needs. I then chose typical situations (supermarket, railway station, post oice and websites using Web 2.0) for ease analyses: for these four situations, I carried out longer observations (28 hours in all, at supermarkets, self- service ticket machines in railway stations, \"automatic\" pay stations, and post ofces, in urban areas selected specically to create a diversied sociological sample) and which were more in depth (reading all the \"general conditions\" on eBay). This corpus of data (documents, observations, and interviews) was analyzed by rst placing the activities carried out by the consumer on a productive value chain, divided into 12 generic stages, from product design to waste recycling. From this Dujarier 559 socioeconomic objectication, it was possible to catch the main social processes at stake, as well as highlight three typical congurations