The use of norms to build the collective

This article aims to link the understanding and transformation of practices through collaboration between researchers, trainers, and practitioners, drawing on an experimental work-based training action (AFEST) implemented within the framework of the Grand Est Investment Plan for Skills (PIC), following the 2018 legislation. The scheme is based on an interprofessional collaborative approach involving a vocational trainer, an ergo-trainer, experienced practitioners, and apprentices working toward a vocational agricultural certificate in landscape gardening.

Learners are engaged both as observed subjects and as producers of knowledge about the occupation.The research is grounded in the analysis of activity traces collected from a filmed debriefing session, based on collective interviews using a cross self-confrontation method. The article shows how the analysis of an ordinary activity — leaf blowing — makes it possible to distinguish between collective work and a work collective, and to highlight a regime of occupational knowledge production grounded in a Canguilhemian epistemology. Embedded in an ergological intervention-research approach, the study examines the transformative potential of inquiry into subjects, activities, the work collective, and the work environment.