Subjectivities behind the wheel: transformations in work relations of drivers in Brazil

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the processes of introducing apps (Easy Taxi and Uber) in the work routine of taxi and private drivers, exploring their work relations and identifying new forms of relationship between them and their passengers. The authors expose the complexity in which such processes occur in a dialogical way, aligning poststructuralist notions of actor–network theory with theorizations on subjectivity production.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 drivers of Easy Taxi and Uber apps in three Brazilian capitals.

Findings

Apps came to play a central role in the work practice of the drivers interviewed. The authors suggest that they offer more security, convenience, accessibility and agility, going beyond dependent forms of working and living, in overlapping networks and connections, enacting entities that guide workers and users to an increasingly programmed way of life.

Practical implications

New forms of thinking managerial relations with taxi and private drivers work and their work relations with other drivers and passengers.

Social implications

This kind of technology not only generates new social relations but also activates mechanisms of subjectivation that reverberate new forms of relating, working and living in contemporaneity.

Originality/value

Approaches on subjectivity regarding the adoption of technology in the practice of work in the contemporaneity, with the emergence of new working relations mediated by e-hailing technology.

Citation

Capaverde, C.B., Medeiros, I.B.d.O., Antonello, C.S. and Rodrigues, M.B. (2021), "Subjectivities behind the wheel: transformations in work relations of drivers in Brazil", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 155-171. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-10-2019-1911