Os ethos do trabalho. Sobre a insegurança ontológica na experiência atual com o trabalho / The ethos of the work: on the ontological insecurity in the current experience to work

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

For a large portion of the past two centuries, the relationship between the sense a person as-signed herself, her identity and the paid labor she did throughout her life was a source of rela-tive stability and security. Work and identity were two intrinsically related realities. In the past few decades, however, a generalized belief has set in that this has come to an end. Ac-cording to this perspective, work has lost its centrality in the identity constitution process. At the same time, beliefs exist to the contrary, that is, that work is still central. Our goal in this study was to relocate the debate on the centrality of work or its end, in the light of a different perspective. We sought to identify why work became associated with identity and what has been taking place since this association became problematic. To rebuild this path, we first perform an analytical definition of the ontology of work as its strong association with identity. Then, using an argument based on pragmatism, we show that the emergence of this ontology relied first on an institutional arrangement where work established itself as central from the economic, moral, ideological, philosophical and contractual perspectives and, second, on the main beliefs of the modern identity construction project, where identity is constructed in ref-erence to something extrinsic, such as work, for example. We then proceed to show that the ontology of work endured strong questioning in the second half of the 20th Century, a process many mistakenly call the death of work. As a consequence we show that ambiguity is the main characteristic of the relationship with work today. It is caused by several coexisting ethos, each which retains a specific definition of the worth and sense of work in defining iden-tity. It befalls individuals to privately define the worth of work among the set of other cur-rently available sources for expressing their identities. Finally, we show that this ambiguity brings about a sense of ontological insecurity in today’s work experience, stressing the need for answers to deal with the situation. We conclude the study with a critical appraisal of the limitations and potentiality of such answers.

ASSUNTO(S)

pós-modernidade labour significado industrial psychology self-conception postmodernism identity meaning psicologia organizacional autoconceito trabalho modernity modernidade identidade

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