Images of labor in the 20th and 21st centuries: Shifts of meaning in the representations of the body associated with the productive sphere

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate the representations of the world of labor and of the bodies located in the productive sphere, based on a historical sample of photographic records and advertisements. We attempt to study the shift of meaning of the representations of the body that are associated with labor, focusing on the conditions of production and on the worldviews of the sociohistorical moment in which they are contextualized. Our analysis covers three historical moments: 1) photographs of the early decades of the 20th century, when the working body was associated to industrial installations and to the society of production that resulted from the Industrial Revolution; 2) mid-century advertising images, when the working body was incorporated to the propaganda strategies of soviet socialism; and 3), images of the working body that were recorded in the global advertising at the beginning of the 21st century, when the body was associated to the sphere of consumption.