How the "Lejabys" came into being : artists and workers in struggle. A spatio-temporal odyssey between mobilising and organising[La fabrique des Lejaby : artistes et ouvrières en lutte - Entre "mobilizing" et "organizing", une odyssée spatio-temporelle]

Art and other creative approaches can be a resource or a mobilizing strategy for activists and artists. Little work has been done, however, on what happens in the interactions between artists and activists in the daily life of a conflict. We suggest that social mobilizations may be seen as organizing processes as well as mobilizing actions, and we analyze how creative and artistic approaches may contribute to this organizing/mobilizing reciprocal relationship. Based on an analysis of the conflict that accompanied the announcement of the Lejaby plant closure in Yssingeaux in 2012, and which inspired several artists, we show that these approaches, by their capacity to grasp sensitive dimensions, favour spatio-temporal episodes that structure the struggle: some constitute protected spaces, which can correspond to an intimate reflexive time or to a collective moment of synchronization of subjective temporalities ; others correspond to hybridized spaces, which can be sometimes empowering, sometimes theatrical. We thus contribute both to the field of social movement analysis, and to the role of art and creativity in the organization and mobilization within these movements; we also contribute to a relational reading of the spatial and temporal dimensions of organization and collective action, in the tradition of Lefebvre and Massey.