Representations of work: a study on the confined work system in the oil industry

Abstract

This article explores the influence of the confined work system on the organizational environment representations and social behaviors, inside and outside the workplace. Confinement may be referred to as a total experience in the workplace, imposing special work and life regimes over workers. The study, based on Bourdieu´s and on Moscovici’s Social Representations Theory, explored how confined workers construct meanings and representations of their work through free evocation and discourse analysis. Forty interviews were conducted in two large companies in the oil industry, with head offices in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Duque de Caxias (RJ). The results presented confirmed the influence of confined work environments in the formation of beliefs and the consolidation of specific behaviors, based on defense mechanisms designed to maintain psychological stability of workers, essential to survival in such environments.