Abstract
Poaching, usually understood as trespassing in pursuit of game, in the context of the French aerospace factory described in this article, amounts to manufacturing objects on company time and with company materials and tools for personal use. These objects are known as `homers' in English and perruques in French. The account of homers by a French aerospace employee presented in this article is informed by other ethnographic accounts of similar practices. These accounts highlight the cognitive contrast between homers and work but also some practical similarities between homer production processes and more traditional work processes. Competing definitions of unofficial (and by contrast official) work emerge from this analysis. The `moralities' of poaching are therefore multiple and this multiplicity sustains the poaching system.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
