Empreendedorismo periférico? Motoristas uberizados e lavadores precarizados em lava a jatos nas margens da metrópole

Abstract

The article presents the results of a research carried out through interviews with partner-drivers and car washers in two car washes in Betim, Metropolitan Area of Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais State, Brazil). We begin the analysis with a theoretical debate that recovers the notions of neoliberalism and entrepreneurship as central to understanding the new morphologies of uberized work, platform corporations, urban poverty, and the peripheric areas. Car washes are places where two categories of impoverished workers converge: Uber drivers, who seek to keep their cars clean, and car washers. These workers are a necessary complement, even undervalued, to the provision of services through digital platforms in the metropolis. The second part presents the reports collected from semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and field visits, seeking to give visibility to the subjects of the uberization process. The final considerations recover the dialectic between the banalization of new digital technologies and the renovation of precarious places and workers as metropolitan fluidity conditions