The port modernization process and the production of subjectivity: the port of Santos case

Abstract

This article deals with some results from a large research conducted by an interdisciplinary team on the process of modernization of the port of Santos, in the State of São Paulo, and its implications on health and illness among workers. It focus on the production of subjectivity in the context of dock work, since the transformations that occurred mark the experience of each worker and the lives of the entire group of workers. Thirty workers aged between 34 to 67 years were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews were transcribed and submitted to content analysis. The results point to a peculiar universe of the work in which modernity and technology depend on workers' physical intervention. Thus, workers' body and health ensure the maintenance of port productivity, but they do not feel valued at work. The changing context since the 1990s has allowed workers, through their own actions, to produce services and also to produce a new way to create meaning to the work and the relationships formed there. That is, there is a process in which work is produced and, at the same time, workers are produced by work.