Having a Plurality of Commitments While Working on Oneself

How do individuals produce themselves? This article looks at how a plurality of commitments can be a driver of individuation by opening the space for a practice of the self. It is not only the tranquil presence described by A. Piette’s anthropology, nor the compromises between orders of worth examined by L. Thévenot’s sociology of regimes of engagement. Individuation is an effort to discover and articulate emerging interests. We analyse this work on oneself by drawing on two field studies on employees who, in addition to their paid job, develop a strong voluntary or recreational activity. When cultivated, this plurality of commitments allows for work on oneself, which has two main features: relative detachmentfrom the situation as an employee, without rupture, and an exploration driven by curiosity, leading one to discover what one cares for and to articulate one’s emerging interests. This work on oneself is not only a resource of reflexivity in everyday life, in the moments spent exploring multiple personal attachments, but also a source of self-reinvention on a biographic scale, through the construction of lines of active interest which may redefine the meaning one gives to one’s existence. Analysing these emerging attachments raises the question of the individuation of collectives based on the individuation of persons.