This paper discusses how young workers engaged in mediated employment relationships overcome their territorial disadvantage in a French context. I contribute to theory development on the interrelationship of work and employment processes with the way disadvantaged persons challenge Labor Market inequalities. I draw on two life stories collected from a workplace’s ethnography to illustrate how location plays an important role in both the creation and the lack of opportunities. Whereas the initial residential location constrains the possibilities for the educational attainment in France, the client’s workplace enables external workers to demonstrate competences even with mediated employment relationships. My study contributes to research on critical diversity by showing how these disadvantaged young people achieve to get high status jobs in a context where higher education diplomas are required. Through mechanisms including the negotiation of challenging missions in the client’s workplace and competences development, external workers may take advantage of a work situation despite their precarious employment status. However, other diversity-related attributes such as gender and ethnic origin hamper the capability of stabilizing in a high status job for the educational background disadvantaged. This study offers some potential development in the critical research on space and territoriality in strategic management.
