Everyday Life and Consumption: Survey and Diagnosis of the Free Time and Leisure Among Outsourced Workers

Abstract

This study aimed to perform a survey data of the experience of free time from outsourced workers employed at the Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte – UERN. The research was achieved based on theoretical analysis, obtained in pertinent studies to the sociology of leisure and (quantitative) fieldwork with 47 workers. The actual neoliberal capitalist phase of the capital and work processes of confront and negotiation could be problematized in its theoretical dimensions of how human lifetime and self-cultivation is converted, captured, and appropriated as metabolic resource for the capital reproduction. In this sense, the everyday life and the consumption activities of the so-called free time or leisure of the work class, - here represented in statistical frames by the outsourced workers of the UERN - Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte, - leads to the critical analysis of the cultural industry and of the individualistic ideology of consumerism. As results, it was verified that the dominant leisure among the informants is related to the goods of the cultural industry, a consequence of the lack of cultural capital and the material context in which they live. Gender asymmetry has been observed in certain practices, besides the domestic work that restricts the leisure of some women. So, every day more demands for work in public universities in Brazil decrease the quality of life and leisure of the universities’ employees, in special outsourced workers. Our analytical focus was on UERN, but we may expand in the future to more public and private universities in Brazil.