PTThe dignity of people who cross the border to work
In Foz do Iguaçu, Ciudad del Este and Puerto Iguazú, many people live in one country and work in another. When the boss pays for lunch and treats you "like family", does that promote or hurt the worker's dignity? The thesis listened to 10 cross-border workers and shows that the answer is often both at once. Explained in 12 screens.
Nobody stays in a job for the pay alone
The thesis asks a simple question: what makes someone stay with a company that pays less than another? For the author, the answer does not fit into a contract. Pick what would weigh for you and see which way the scale tips:
The scale and the three kinds of goal (economic, social and complex) come from Figure 01 of the thesis, based on Zelizer (2000) and Swedberg (2005). The reasons were taken from the thesis map (Figure 03); sorting them into economic and social, and the exercise, are ours.
Ten workers who cross customs to get to work
To take part, a person had to live in one of the three cities, work in another, and have been in that job for at least a year. Each participant suggested the next (snowball sampling). The open interviews ran from May to November 2024, in person or online. Pick a view:
Profiles from section 3.3 of the thesis; the counts and the grouping of jobs are ours. To avoid identifying anyone, the figures do not follow the order of codes P01 to P10. Not to scale. The method says everyone lives between Brazil and Paraguay, but one profile lives in Argentina; we follow the profiles.
Every conversation at work can promote or hurt dignity
The thesis brings together three ideas. Dignity is not only the worth every human being has: it is also built in interactions, and each one is an "encounter" that promotes or violates it (Jacobson, 2009). Intimacy is closeness that gets negotiated, with trust, even within an economic exchange (Zelizer, 2000). Interests drive every relationship, economic or not (Swedberg, 2005). Test the first idea: does this gesture promote or violate dignity?
Words from Jacobson's (2009) lists as reproduced in section 2.4.2 of the thesis: 22 ways of promoting and 24 of violating dignity. The selection of nine is ours.
The study drew a map of work relations
The author used Boaventura de Sousa Santos's symbolic cartography. Every map distorts reality in three ways, and knowing the distortions is what makes a map useful. The thesis uses all three as tools to read the interviews. Tap each one:
Sections 3.2, 3.4 and 4.1 of the thesis. Drawings are ours.
Answer the questions the workers were asked
Four of the 16 questions in the interview guide. Pick the answer closest to yours and compare it with what the participants said:
Questions from Appendix 3; quotes from chapter 4, identified only by the thesis code and translated by us. The answer options are ours. Where a quote revealed the person's gender, we used […].
At the scale of society, only the need for money shows up
The map crosses three scales (the relationship with the boss, organizations, society) with three categories. Each cube is an element from the interviews: dark at the centre, light on the periphery. At the scale of society, intimacy and dignity were left empty. Tap a stack:
A redrawing of Figure 03 of the thesis (a wheel-shaped map), read at high resolution; the counts are ours. Where the text and the figure list different items, we follow the figure. In the small-scale interests, the figure shows an eighth, illegible word (possibly "underemployment"), which we left out.
A lunch paid for by the boss is also a strategy
The workers spoke fondly of bosses who were close to them. The author does not deny the gestures are kind, but recalls Zelizer: there is no intimacy without some interest behind it. Flip each card to see what the gesture can also do.
Gestures and readings from section 4.1.1 (and 4.1.3, for the sixth card). The readings are the author's; quotes carry the thesis code. Where jobs are scarcest, the thesis saw the opposite: with the advantage of working abroad, P04's employer does not even need intimacy.
Violations ended up at the centre of the dignity map
On the map, the centre gathers what appears most and is seen as normal; the periphery, what stays on the margins. Before you look: in the relationship with the boss (large scale), what do you expect to find at the centre?
Elements from Figure 03 (dignity, large and medium scales); quotes from section 4.1.2. Tap a word. The small scale of dignity was left empty in the thesis.
The need for money becomes the rule in border businesses
Why accept extra hours and the daily crossing? The author reads interests from the bottom up. At the base, the need to make a living, seen as natural. In the middle, organizations that turn this into practice. At the top, what each person seeks beyond money. Tap a layer:
Section 4.1.3 and Figure 03 of the thesis. The figure lists one more element than the text at the large scale ("obligations to family"); we follow the figure. Layer sizes are only a drawing.
Being part of the family can erase the contract
The strongest case in the thesis is that of someone who works in a family home (P07). The same facts can be read through two lenses. Switch lenses and tap a fact:
Facts and quotes from sections 4.1.2, 4.1.3 and 4.2; readings by the author. The house is our drawing.
Symbolic respect is no substitute for rights
The thesis calls what it found ambiguous dignity: intimate strategies (symbolic appreciation, informal agreements) give workers a positive identity and, at the same time, sustain unpaid hours and unregistered work, which come to seem normal. And workers are not naive: they know this and also negotiate what they accept.
For employers (including families)
- Fair pay, safe conditions and no extra hours without payment.
- Clear tasks and hours: trust and affection do not replace what was agreed.
For managers
- Dialogue, feedback and chances to grow strengthen dignity, according to the accounts.
- Teach leaders, and customers too, about respect: insults from customers came up in the interviews.
For society and government
- The author points to a lack of inspection at the triple border crossings and to weak institutions.
- Discrimination and lower pay tied to being a foreigner call for inclusive policies.
What this research does not say
- The employer's side. Only workers were interviewed. · according to the author
- Ten people, by referral. Snowball sampling with ten participants limits the reach; the author relies on depth instead. · according to the author
- How often each element came up. The thesis does not say how many people mentioned each item on the map; centre and periphery are the researcher's reading. · our observation
- A young and varied sample. Half were 25 or younger, and some work in their own family's business, a very different situation from that of an ordinary employee. · our observation
- Interpretation, not measurement. The thesis is qualitative and reflexive: it shows possible mechanisms, not how many border workers live each situation. · our observation
Credits
MARIO, Fábio Aurelio de. Dignidade de trabalhadores transfronteiriços: implicações a partir das relações de trabalho complexas. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration) · Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, 2025. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Maria Luisa Mendes Teixeira.
Research approved by the Research Ethics Committee, with a consent form signed by every participant. Participants appear only by the thesis codes, without identifying details. This version simplifies the work for a general audience.