O drama do psiquismo em tempos de uberização: uma análise das ideologias no conflito capital-trabalho

Abstract

This research analyzes how the ideologies of the uberization of work relate to the ways of feeling, thinking, and acting of workers in platform companies. To do this, we draw on Socio-Historical Psychology, which is based on Historical-Dialectical Materialism. Therefore, the psyche is considered a product of human labor, acting as an instrument through an integrated system of higher psychological functions that is organized semantically. However, the psychological system has a dramatic configuration, meaning it is full of conflicts and contradictions. Thus, the general objective is to analyze how the ideologies of uberization organize the drama of workers' psyches. The specific objectives include: investigating the main determinants of the uberization of work; relating the concept of ideology, as proposed by Lukács, with the main meanings that arise from uberization; deepening the discussion of the drama to understand the dynamics of the psyche; identifying the meanings, significance, and emotions that workers in urban mobility platform companies attribute to uberization.To investigate the determinants of uberization, we sought, through Marxist authors, to establish connections between uberization, exploitation, and ideology. In understanding the psyche, we take the drama as the unit of analysis, since this category encompasses thought and emotion, individual and society, the conflict between different motives, and the complex organization of higher psychological functions, as well as the very development of the psyche. To empirically demonstrate how the ideologies of uberization organize the psyche of workers, we conducted an interview with a worker from a platform company. The interview is part of the multicentric research Nexos da uberização: uma análise a partir dos trabalhadores and investigated how the worker signifies, thinks, is affected, and acts in relation to the work context. In the empirical analysis, we chose the technique of Simplified Graphic Discourse Analysis, which allowed us to grasp the determinations, contradictions, and ideological mediations that constitute the worker's thinking, meaning, sense, emotion, and worldview. In summary, the research demonstrates that although the worker signifies work through autonomy, there are meanings that contradict this significance. Similarly, there are contradictions regarding the emotions produced at work, as even though the worker feels good about the activity they perform, they consider it dispensable and, in fact, would prefer not to have to do it. The contradictions in the workers' psyches indicate the potential for transformation of the psyche.