ABSTRACT
This study aimed to understand how work practices and people management are designed and built in daily life, in a place whose work requires coping with death. This is a qualitative study which followed the routine of 4 morticians, 1 on-call manager, 1 administrative manager and 1 mortuary make-up artist in their working environment, a small funeral company in Porto Alegre. Data was collected using ethnographic techniques (CAVEDON, 2003CAVEDON, N. R. Antropologia para administradores. Porto Alegre: UFRGS, 2003.) and the interpretation performed by content analysis (MINAYO, 2010MINAYO, M. C. S. (Org.). Pesquisa social: teoria, método e criatividade. 29. ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2010.). The findings were grouped into four categories understood as part of the process of subjectivation of practice/ knowledge in face of death: 1) resizing the certainties; 2) knowledge at/about the work in face of death reframing; 3) being a worker shaped by the representation of death in society; and 4) management being construed in the context of death. We have seen that these professionals create and reinvent their practices, starting from a process of reframing and naturalizing death. The organizational environment, in line with Certeau (2008)CERTEAU, M. de. A invenção do cotidiano: 1. Artes de fazer. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2008., is a space where workers use their own meanings in the management of themselves and their daily life.
Keywords:
Small Business Management; Funeral Homes; Subjectivity; Daily Life; Death