Vínculos y trabajo mediado por plataformas digitales: configuración de relaciones entre el trabajador y su trabajo

Abstract

Work mediated by digital platforms is a way of organizing work that has been recently empirically approached, so different descriptions are necessary to understand its complexity. The objective of this doctoral research was to analyze the configuration of attachments that workers in Salvador de Bahía (Brazil) and Cali (Colombia) establish with their work mediated by digital platforms of low, medium or high specialization. The attachment was understood as a particular relationship between a subject and the other(s), and the work mediated by digital platforms as a paid human activity in which the platform, application or app is a management tool that mediates the work relationship, whatever the modality in which the latter is presented, and considering that this work has different specializations. In this descriptive and cross-cultural qualitative research, in-depth interviews were conducted with workers in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil) and Santiago de Cali (Colombia), and the websites of the platforms used by them were documentarily reviewed, the information collected was analyzed with the technique of content analysis and dialogic maps. Different working conditions were found in the work performed by the participants, as well as particular functions and effects of the worker's interaction with the management tool. The dimensions and levels in the configuration of the attachment highlight the complexity of the participants' relationships with their work and its specializations. The effect caused by the novelty of the management tool in the narratives about this type of work was discussed, and that the attachment in this relationship are configured by the constant search for a better life and work in the sense of the values of their society, and in the framework of historically constructed social actions. Finally, based on the linking relationship studied, some methodological and theoretical elements were contributed to Pichón-Rivière's proposal, as well as to the concept of work mediated by digital platforms. Also, from the studied relationship, it was concluded that the attachment found report the relationship of these workers with their predecessors for being loaded with a past that was not built by him, and with their successors because, although he does not know them, he names them in a future in which social transformation is desired.