Experiences of Retail-store Workers in Chile. An approach from Dubet’s sociology

Abstract

The article presents the main findings of research on the social experience of the workers of the Department Stores in the retail sector in Chile, an economic field that has experienced a profound process of modernization and productive restructuring in Latin America since 1990. The research was driven by the theoretical approach of François Dubet’s sociology of experience and resorted to a qualitative methodology that included 31 interviews with sales workers of the three major department stores in the country and six interviews with key actors in retail, which were analyzed through the codification procedures of the Grounded theory. The results describe the action logics (integration, strategy and subjectivization) and the specific modalities in which they articulate to give rise to three figures of work experience: engaged, blocked and in transition. The conclusions elaborate on the study’s contribution to the field of Labor Studies in Latin America.