Autonomí­a y precariedad. Trayectorias en la heterogeneidad del trabajo cuenta propia de la ciudad de Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires

Abstract

This research proposes to investigate the trajectories of self-employed workers visibilizing the relationship between objective working conditions and subjective perceptions. It tried: a) to show how the characterizations of autonomy and precariousness accompany the development of this activity in its various modalities and b) to understand how these two characteristics are interwoven to define the objective development and the subjective perceptions of the work in these different itineraries.

The occupational category “cuenta propia” accounts for a work activity with distinctive economic and social features, however, one of the peculiarities of the activity is its heterogeneity, which allows to frame a wide range of situations ranging from the entrepreneurial project, the Self-employment and subsistence employment.

The research aims to work on a wide and diverse spectrum of self-employment trajectories to deepen the constitutive aspects of this form of work and to review the categorizations with which these activities are usually classified.

From a qualitative perspective, we worked with interviews to deepen the labor trajectories emphasizing both their objective and subjective aspects, as well as considering the structural dimensions and the strategies assumed by the workers in relation to the processes in which they are insert.