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This contribution proposes an approach to the contemporary transformations of the definitions of work and of employee status in Mali. Such social dynamics reveal new conceptions of politics and of individual autonomy. Observations were collected in Chinese companies employing local workers, and in Malian companies in the “formal” and “informal” sectors. Through increasing demands for a mode of employment based on a legal contract, Malian workers attribute new meanings to the Nation State, and base their social strategies on it. The State appears to play the role awarded to the elders in the former rural society, while the contract of employment is interpreted as a new social contract.