| Summary: | The development of nature jobs in France is linked to a sometimes fierce opposition to bureaucracy and the rising resort to technology. However, these jobs are currently becoming more and more rationalized, technical, and professional, far from matching the myth of activities which would be essentially characterized by engagement, passion, or proximity with the field. People working in natural areas highlight their alignment with other types of professions, thus showing a will to convince, others and themselves, that their activity is a “genuine work”, a “genuine job”.Drawing on an empirical survey that follows a set of previous works, we seek to illuminate how this tension – between passion and rationalization, between specificity and alignment –shapes the life and practices of nature professionals in France. We investigate three levels: that of engagement conditions in the job (tensed between a claim of qualifications and skills and a claim of passion); that of professional identities (caught between the naturalist expert identity and the broker identity); that of work practices (showing an oscillation between new public management and proximity with nature).Thus, we sketch the lines of a particular and paradoxical form of professionalization, specific to job natures, which developed on a tension between rationalization and resistance to rationalization, between alignment with the standards of other professions and preservation of its specificity.
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