Public Gardeners As Care Workers

The profession of municipal gardener is undergoing a number of changes linked both to the greening of practices and to the reduction in resources allocated to local authorities in France. To compensate for the lack of attractiveness of public-sector green space services compared with private landscape contractors, recruitment methods are evolving. The sociological profile of municipal gardeners is changing, but the profession remains largely male-dominated. However, following on from maintenance studies, I see it as a care profession. The role of the gardener is to reproduce living conditions and care for nature. Furthermore, the profession suffers from a devaluation similar to that of feminized care professions (invisibilization and disqualification of professional techniques, casualization).

This paper is based on a qualitative study of a team of municipal gardeners in the city of Rennes, in western France, conducted from may to july, 2024. The research material is drawn from eight weeks of participant observation and ten semi-structured interviews with the team members. I will analyze the discourse on professional norms in the interviews and the interactions between agents.

In this paper, I will discuss the gender dimension in the differentiated appreciation of maintenance tasks such as weeding, as opposed to the maintenance of working machines or higher-volume operations. The greening of practices modifies the type of technical skills expected. What kind of masculinity do municipal gardeners express through their professional practices? How do they integrate care for residents in their daily living spaces into their professional standards? How does this specific case inform the debate on professionalization in the care professions?