The perception of young workers in the informal footwear sector about work

a cartographic study

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate and understand the meanings attributed to work by young workers in the informal footwear sector. Five students between the ages of 16 and 24 participated in this study, all of them were workers of small footwear industries located in a typical working-class district of a city in the state of São Paulo. The carto(photo) graphy was one of the investigative methods used. The participants themselves took photographs of scenes involving their work and talked about their meanings through individual and focus group interviews that were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data evaluation was done by a traditional content analysis, and the focus group interview was analyzed from categories formed and named by the participants themselves and discussed according to the chosen theoretical-conceptual framework. It was therefore concluded that most of the participants live in a universe with very limited possibilities, what makes it impossible for them to build new ways of being and existing in the world, living inside the alienating dominant logic, trapped in the capitalistic subjectivity. Some, though, even subtly, can see new possibilities and have a desire for transformation.