Sociology of the experience and struggles for recognition. The associations for work and income generation in southern Brazil

Abstract

This paper/work considers a sociology of the experience in associations for work and income generation in the south of Brazil. For this, we decompose the rationality of the action in worker associations into a triple register, where we investigate: a) the forms of social insertion and integration configured by relations of solidarity; b) the dimension of the strategic rationality of each group expressed/reflected in the struggles for recognition; and c) the subjectivation processes expressed in the affirmation of identity in each specific group of workers. From the field research in the associations, we ascertained a process of subjectivation characterized by what we now call of a “logic of respect”, which possesses a double inflection, i. e., on the one hand, the search in the the private sphere to break with the masculine domination expressed in a code of honor whose most dramatic consequence is reflected in domestic violence and, on the other hand, we ascertained a movement towards the public sphere, on the basis of the connection/combination of an association with a social movement, which thus translates the claim for recognition of the dignity of individuals subjected to all kinds of rejected recognition.