The "offshore world" as a field: domination and work on board the rigs in the Campos Basin

Abstract

This paper discusses a symbolic domination exerted by employees of Petrobras over outsourced workers aboard the Offshore Oil and Gas Production Units in the Campos Basin. This phenomenon is expected to the legitimized through consensus around an ideology constructed and reproduced by the corporate discourse of Petrobras. While rooted in the historical difficulties faced to effectively make the Campos Basin a locus of symbolic affirmation of the company, such an ideology – characterized as "triumphalist" – is what nurtures the aspirations of many workers to join the "offshore world" and, by doing so, reinforces it.

Keywords

• Offshore work. Petrobras. Campos Basin. Outsourcing. Identities.