Lui, c’est un ”grand” » / « Eux, c’est nos ”p’tits” » : dynamique de catégorisation et ordre social chez les jeunes des quartiers populaires.

This article focuses on the inter-age relations in working class neighbourhoods, and more specifically on the categorization and organization of relations between young people as “big guys”/“little ones”. Our analysis is based on the use of data collected in a working-class neighbourhood, Les Tarterêts, during a participative research conducted by the collective Pop-Art, using ethnographic data and interviews. After defining the characteristics of a “big guy”, our article proposes a mapping of the different categories observed and described by the young people. It thus highlights that the “big guys” / “little ones” system is based on privileged links implying availability and reciprocity that allow the implementation of an “administration of respect”. These relationships are based on several unspoken rules: privileged links do not exist between group categories and categories of the opposite sex; a girl or a group of girls cannot establish privileged links with a group of boys; girls cannot become a collective elective resource.