How a social group objectified itself: “cadres” in France, 1936-45

The “cadre” category poses a particular problem for sociology: that of its very existence. Against substantialist and naturalistic conceptions of social groups, which focus on the “objective” criteria whereby the group must be defined or in its external determinations, this paper analyses the formation of the “cadres” focusing on the social effort of definition and 1 Sociologo, director de estudios en la Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) de Paris y miembro