Youth, work and masculinities: a study on bike couriers in delivery apps in the city of São Paulo

• Grant number: 22/11328-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• End date: February 29, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Nadya Araujo Guimarães
• Grantee: Douglas Alexandre Santos Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project intends to investigate the meanings of work among young bike couriers indelivery apps in the city of São Paulo. This relationship, in Sociology, has been treated fromthe point of view of economic forms of subjection, expressed in the mechanisms of controland organization of work. Here, I seek to explore another dimension, also relevant: that ofmasculinities as constitutive of a morality attributed to male work, because I understand thatgender and masculinities are equally fundamental volitional aspects to understand theoccupational engagement of young men. In consonance with what the literature on sociologyand psychodynamics of work has highlighted, I will try to verify the hypothesis that therelationship of these young men with the delivery activity on platforms has as its mainstay amoral value associated to male work, that is, that the exercise of occupations in which there isa deliberate exposure of the body to risks constitutes a socially valued way of demonstratingindependence and affirmation of their masculinities. Through these activities, couriers wouldacquire respect not only in the work environment, but also in their social environments oforigin, or in their "pedaços". Assuming the perspective of gender transversality, the empiricalresearch will be carried out through a multi-sited ethnography, following young people atwork and outside of it. In this articulated way, it will be possible to understand the movementof co-production of masculinities, at work and outside of work.