A ideia de empresário de si no serviço público: uma análise na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande

Abstract

Business ideals and values have intensely been applied to various aspects of human life, establishing forms of conduct and making the enterprise the model of subjectivation (DARDOT and LAVAL, 2016). These values establish the “entrepreneur of himself” (FOUCAULT, 2008), as an ideal to be achieved, and that its connection with public service is a field that has still been little explored, this work aims to analyze Foucault's idea of the entrepreneur of the self in public service, based on the perception of managers and employees, assigned to the Pro-Rector's Offices of the Federal University of Rio Grande. For a better discussion regarding the focus of this study, an articulation with concepts from other authors was carried out, such as the "entrepreneurial man" by Laval and Dardot (2016), the idea of "government of the soul" by Rose (1988), and the reflections on "self-management" by De Gaulejac (2007). The analysis first focused on the context in which the public servants are inserted, understanding how state bureaucracy historically incorporates a business discourse within the reality of Brazilian public service; how people management policies establish what is expected from them; and how these policies are presented in the specific space of FURG, encouraging the adoption of the ideal of the entrepreneur of the self among the public servants. In a second moment, based on data from 10 interviews with university managers and employees, it was observed that they identified with the institution's values and an increasingly diffuse control over their work, which encourages self-management and increasing self-accountability. The perceptions of the interviewed converge towards the existence of a conflict between the ideal to be achieved, which resembles the idea of the entrepreneur of oneself, through personal pressure to do more and be better, and the search for security and stability within a bureaucratic apparatus that limits their actions. In this context, feelings of guilt and frustration are perceived, which may lead to illness, highlighting the necessity of proposing reflections that could intervene in these discourses and understandings, providing a differentiated perspective on health issues.