This contribution to the analysis of the specific features of labour in rural areas concentrates on the workings of the labour market, assuming that the forces organizing the buying and selling of labour vary in space or, at least, are variously expressed depending on the geographical context of implantation of agents. Using an institutionalist approach, the task consists in identifying those mechanisms with a geographical dimension that bring about segmentation of the labour market. After presenting the two selected models, which pertain to « industrial » and « paternalistic » reasoning, and reviewing them in terms of labour management, the findings of a survey of manufacturing plants located in one rural area of France — Bresse bourguignonne — are used to evaluate the practices. The example of Bresse suggests there is some « paternalistic » practices, in small traditional firms, and they may underlie the processes of segmentation.
