Activation and disposal of workers’ dispositions at the Rio Grande Naval Pole: bodies between the fantasy and the ghost

Abstract

The article analyzes the dispositions activated in the workers of a large industrial venture in the south of Rio Grande do Sul, the Rio Grande Naval Pole, which operated on a large scale from 2005/6 to 2016. Using an ethnographic approach, former workers of the Naval Pole were interviewed, initially developing hypotheses about the activation and discarding of dispositions. Initially, we resorted to the concept of dispositions based on the work of Bourdieu (as part of the concept of habitus) and, mainly, Lahire. We also bring, at a later stage, the view of the sociology of the body and emotions, with the aim of better capturing the subjective processes involved in a process of attraction and expulsion of workers. To this end, we focus on Bourdieu’s perspectives, through Medeiros (2017) and Wacquant (2014), and Scribano (2012). In addition to an introductory part, the article addresses the so-called «twenty-year project», the activation of economic and cognitive dispositions; the negative signals and the accelerated process of decline; the extinction of economic and cognitive dispositions, and makes a re-reading from the contributions of the sociology of the body and emotions. As a main reflection, it is argued that Brazilian and Latin American workers live with the ghost of unemployment and precariousness (suffering bodies) and that only briefly, at some point, have they managed to enjoy some social fantasy (illusory bodies).