Whatever happened to work: From the centrality of shoes, ships and sealing-wax to the problems posed by flying pigs

Abstract

During their entire disciplinary lives, psychology and social psychology have treated work as a naturalized fact and an inevitable part of human existence. Whilst themes such as working conditions, decent work, work and subjectivity, work and vocation, guidance and careers may be discussed in a critical manner, the overall centrality of the work discourse is left untouched. In this essay it is argued that the multiple forms, possibilities, contradictions and restrictions present in contemporary economic relations are pointing to the weakening, or even fragmentation, of the articulating role of work and in third world countries like Brazil, where the western model of salaried wage employment was never extensive to more than a part of the population, this process becomes doubly complicated. In these circumstances it is important to seek a different starting point for the social psychological discussion of economic activity, which can give greater visibility to the multiple ways in which people "get by" in order to keep their homes together, sustain households and develop family collectives.