Porque el trabajo es una cosa y el hogar otra. Una aproximación feminista a la salud mental de mujeres vinculadas a empleos subcontratados en Colombia

Abstract

This thesis uses a feminist approach to scrutinize trends concerning mental health of subcontracted female workers and employees in Colombia. Firstly, the effects of “normalization” of changes towards more difficult working conditions in paid work -as a consequence of neoliberal practices- on the mental health of male and female workers and employees are questioned. Within this approach I opted for a poststructuralist feminist perspective to question the hegemonic logic which dictates the parameters of knowledge concerning subcontracted workers, the mental health of women in the labor market, and the interplay of factors which reproduce the inequalities from which women suffer. This thesis begins with a consideration of the conceptual categories of subcontracting, mental health, and women. This gives rise to attributing to them new meaning in order to develop a better methodological approach which shows how subjectivity is created in the context of subcontracted work. The methodology used here is framed in the discourse analysis perspectives (Burr, 1999; Garay, Iñiguez y Martínez, 2005) that focus on a feminist approach (Lazar, 2010). These perspectives try to show the form in which the assumptions about gender, which are generally taken as “true”, are “produced, negotiated, supported and challenged discursively in different contexts and communities” (Lazar, 2010; 142). The techniques used in the empirical analysis were documental analysis, secondary data analysis, participant observations, and semi- structured interviews. Of these latter, sixteen interviews were conducted with subcontracted women and six with psychological expert in occupational health. The Content Analysis approach of Mayring (2000) and the Dense Description of Geertz (1973) were used in the analysis of the empirical material. Results of this academic work will permit to recognize how subcontracted women are rendered invisible by and within the Colombian occupational health system, and further show us the dynamic’s particularities of two kinds of subcontracting, i.e. direct and intermediation, and how these interact with the women’s mental health. They also show us one of the hegemonic discourses about mental health in this context, the practices that it is connecting and how the women’s intersectionalities are being questioned. These results consequently underline the pressing need for discussion concerning, on the one hand, the necessity to develop more research concerning this group of female workers and employees to disclose their reality, and on the other hand, the necessity to “denaturalize” the traditional separation between ‘life inside paid work’ and ‘life outside paid work’ when trying to improve our knowledge about occupational mental health. This discussion is imperative to avoid reproducing the inequalities that some women are confronted with the separation crossing their intersectionalities. It also permits to consider including the role of the subjectivity in the adjustment or transformation of the condition of oppression that they experience. Finally, evidence arises concerning the theoretical contributions of this kind of approach to the improved understanding of contemporary problems concerning paid work and the necessity to conduct more research into the domain of the psychology of organizations and work using this approach.

Date of Award	11 Dec 2013
Original language	Spanish
Awarding Institution	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Supervisor	Luz Maria Martinez Martinez (Director)