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This article sets out to analyze the activity of wage workers hired by temporary work agencies, the emblematic figure of the new triangular work relations. These relations clearly illustrate the “connective” context in which workers are trapped simultaneously between several action logics, solicited in numerous ways by their environment, and challenged by differentiated relational frameworks. We analyze the experience of these situations, focusing on work as an activity rather than a social relation. We describe perceived work practices, the experience of temp agency workers based on their own perception of their status and working conditions. The two dimensions of the analysis are : a) the relationship between agency workers and their specific work environment, and b) the logic behind using agencies which is at odds with the actual conditions of the work activity. We show that such activity is precarious and bears little meaning and the use of agencies, whether it is strategic or risky, does not really take into account the activity's characteristics, placing workers in an “opportunistic” relation with their work environment. For them, “real work” resides outside of the “activity”. Our analyses are based on empirical material from forty-two interviews with agency wage earners carried out in 2012 and 2013 in the Québec City and Montreal regions.

Keywords: travail et activité, agences de travail temporaire, logiques de recours aux agences, Québec, labour and activity, temporary work agencies, logic of using agencies, Quebec, trabajo y actividad, agencias de trabajo temporal, lógicas de recurso a las agencias, Quebec

This article explores the role of temporary employment agencies in Montreal in the exploitation of immigrant labour and their relationship to systemic racism in Quebec. The hypothesis guiding this article is that the deregulation of agencies and the vulnerabilities produced by workers' immigration status are factors that transform temporary agency work into a component of systemic racism in the Quebec labour market. We seek here to analyse whether the temporary work regime is linked to discrimination based on immigration status and systemic racism. In this article, I first discuss what temporary agency work is and its effects on working conditions, emphasizing the importance of using immigrant labour. I then review the historical patterns of racial discrimination in Canada and Quebec, and present and analyze some experiences of abuse and discrimination in the workplace as well as some agency practices in managing immigrants' vulnerabilities. These analyses are based on interviews with 42 immigrant workers as well as interviews with organizers from the Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (CTI) and the Association des travailleurs et travailleuses d'agences de placement de Montréal (ATTAP).

Keywords: Racisme, immigration, précarité, vulnérabilités, agences d'emploi, Racism, immigration, precarity, vulnerabilities, employment agencies, Racismo, inmigración, precariedad, vulnerabilidades, agencias de empleo

Whereas the meal occupies an important place in Jewish, Christian or Muslim religious life, it appears that fasting also occupies a central place in these traditions. What does this religious obligation imply theologically ? Is fasting an exhortation to forego feeding the body, to scorn this world ? Or, on the contrary, is fasting a practice preparing us to celebrate the fruits of Creation during a meal ? To better appreciate the taste of a « break-fast » ? In this article, I will explore the theological implications of fasting in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I will study the writings of some spiritual figures (mystics, monks, ascetics) related to this practice and try to understand what relationship fasting induces with the body, Creation, life and death in each of these three religions.

We propose a performative reading of the gift of discernment as a specific charisma that integrates the believing subject into a project of self-transformation that takes place by means of techniques for deciphering the self. As we compare ethnographic data that were collected among three groups (Charismatic renewal, Congolese Pentecostals and an ashram based in Montreal), we also emphasize the role of the techniques of socialization, of the peer-community and of the hierarchy, to frame and supervise this work on the self. We show that practising the charisma of discernment involves a power relationship whose issues are those of knowledge and recognition. While looking at the concept of charisma as rooted in a typically Christian epistemology, we revisit it within a sociological framework whose operationalization allows us to better understand the contemporary religious behaviours that frame the project of realization of the self within recognized authority structure.

In recent years, the issue of trafficking in persons, especially women and girls, has attracted considerable attention worldwide and has generated growing concern among international and national human rights organizations. Although human trafficking for prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation is widely denounced and the international community has mobilized significant resources to suppress the phenomenon, the trafficking of women and girls for purposes of forced marriage is still poorly documented and legislated. Yet, as several reports have established, this is a reality that does exist on a global scale. Based on a review of the literature and legal documentation, this article aims to summarize analytical knowledge about trafficking in women and girls for forced marriage, a phenomenon that combines two issues that are usually studied separately: human trafficking of women and girls and forced marriage. This article raises two key questions: firstly, can forced marriage be a form of trafficking? And secondly, if so, is the Additional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children applicable?