“Doing their best for the company”: neoliberalism and the subjectivity of shopper workers

Abstract

This article aims to understand the subjectivity of the shopper worker, analyzing uberization in the Brazilian scenario and the impacts of neoliberalism on the social and urban reality. We investigated how shoppers describe their activities, what relationships they establish with platforms and colleagues, and how they manifest their identity. To achieve this, we analyzed two workers who talk about this type of work on YouTube channels. The conclusions point out that the uncertainties experienced in this context are converted into uncertainties regarding their professional identities, which are added to an urban context dominated by lack of protection of millions of workers, who are sometimes seen as entrepreneurs of their own lives seeking to build alternatives of income and work.