Abstract

VEJAR, Dasten Julián. Job insecurity in Latin America: contributions to the creation of a model. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2017, vol.40, n.2, pp.27-46. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v40n2.66382.

Studies on job insecurity are currently widespread in the social sciences, and the presence of the issue in scientific journals, research, congresses, and other settings has contributed to its also being addressed in labor studies. This makes it possible to pose questions regarding the definitions and peculiarities of job insecurity, as a concept and a relation, within the context of the research, understanding, and analysis of Latin American reality. Bearing in mind that this debate emerged mainly in European countries such as France and Germany, it is necessary to address its pertinence in contexts and social configurations in which protection and social welfare have not been historically guaranteed by State policies and have not been associated with industrialization processes or early modernity. The article reviews some of the proposals for the study and conceptualization of job insecurity in Latin America, in connection with diverse readings of the transformation of labor in the 21st century. It presents a general study of the proposals of Enrique de la Garza, Ricardo Antúnes, Minor Mora Salas, and Diego Piñeiro regarding the changes in labor and the relation of this process to job insecurity in Latin America, taking into account the diversity of their approaches and their geographic and reference contexts in order to highlight the issues raised by job insecurity. The article then goes on to make a proposal for the systematization and dialogue among these different approaches, on the basis of the identification of the conditions that express the peculiarity of Latin American social reality with respect to the phenomenon of labor. It includes the debates on informality, marginality, and independent work, as well as on colonialism, racism, patriarchal societies, slavery, and forced labor, in order to emphasize the core topics that make it possible to generate a multidimensional view of job insecurity. Finally, the paper draws some conclusions for the empirical study of job insecurity in the current contexts of neo-liberalism, globalization, and diversification of work modalities.

Keywords : global South; informality; job insecurity; labor sociology; Latin America; precarious employment.

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