WATER MERCHANTS: ALIENATION AND WORK ACTIVITY IN WATER TRUCKS IN THE SEMI-ARID UPWEST POTIRGUAR
alienation of labor; health; semiarid; territory; activity clinic
What does a water truck carry besides water? To answer this question, it is necessary to consider that, in addition to being an expression of a broader social formation in the semi-arid region, the workers of the water trucks, the focus of this study, participate in this mode of social reproduction and demonstrate the manifestations of work alienation in the region. Thus, the general objective of this thesis is to analyze how work alienation in the context of the semi-arid region of Alto Oeste Potiguar affects the activity of water truck workers. The specific objectives are: a) To examine how the process of territorialization of the semi-arid region is expressed in the reality of the activity and its hindrances; b) To understand the possibilities of developing the power to act, therefore, the dimension of health, in the face of work estrangement and worker objectification; c) To evaluate the contradictions of the developmental proposal of the theoretical-methodological instrument of Activity Clinic in the face of alienated work. The approach to the activity of water truck workers occurred both through a historical analysis of the process of territorialization of the semi-arid region, and through an analysis of working conditions in the last two decades in the studied microregion. In addition, the theoretical-methodological instrument of Activity Clinic was used to access the work activity of the participants. Three workers who deliver water in the studied microregion were interviewed, with two interviews conducted accompanying the delivery of water in rural and urban areas. Preliminary results indicate that the estrangement resulting from work alienation appears during the analysis of the participants' activity. However, it was found that the possibility of managing these estrangements requires a reconsideration of the theoretical operators of Activity Clinic, in order to incorporate not only the dialectical theory of its historical-cultural roots but also the purpose of positively overcoming the exploitation of work.