Resistance to precarious work through solidarity relations: four cases from Brazil

Abstract

This paper is based on four empirical researches conducted within the theoretical framework of the Social Psychology of Work. In Brazil, the old and persistent inequality, added to the replacement of regulated jobs by new forms of precarious work, promotes implications for the health and subjectivity of workers who have to deal with various risks in order to maintain life. In order to discuss ways in which workers face this process, we present cases that express collective forms of resistance. The meta-analysis showed that poor segments of the population build work relations and social life based on cooperation, mutual help, and community ties that represent forms of resistance to the labor precarization. Although each case has different origins, purposes and scope, the solidarity present in them highlights the possibility of building social relations capable of producing and sustaining other economies and subjectivities, depending on each circumstance and intentionality.