A vivência do teletrabalho para teletrabalhadores de uma instituição pública do RN

Abstract

Teleworking is a type of remote work, mediated by the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which has been gaining ground in the Brazilian workplace and around the world. The social isolation measures needed to contain the new coronavirus pandemic have further boosted adherence to this modality, which has been expanding since the 90s. Although progress has been made towards identifying the advantages and disadvantages of the modality, there are still many questions that help to understand the materiality of the modality and its subjective repercussions on teleworkers, especially when thinking about telework as a phenomenon that emerges and expands under neoliberalism. In this sense, the aim of this work is to analyze how the discourses and practices of constructing a neoliberal subject are refracted in the experience of teleworkers. To do this, we adopted the perspective of Cultural-Historical Psychology as our research approach, seeking to understand the dialectic of the constitution of the phenomenon of teleworking in the particular and universal conditions in which they are inserted. As a methodological approach, we carried out a study in two sectors of a public judicial institution, with semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 civil servants. The analysis of the interviews followed the methodology of the nuclei of dramatic coalitions developed in this study, allowing us to explore the different meanings, dramas and contradictions associated with the experience of teleworking. The results point to different solutions to the dramas experienced between 1) being productive and enjoying the flexibility of teleworking; 2) being a teleworker and playing family roles and 3) working in isolation or socializing with colleagues. The conclusions show that teleworking is a contradictory activity which, although it meets with approval due to its flexibility, requires workers to make important adaptations in order to maintain it. Neoliberal rationality finds adherence especially in discourses that emphasize productivity, self-monitoring and self-surveillance. One point of resistance to this rationality is the family as a dimension of identity.