SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE AT ORGANIZATIONAL NON-PLACES: A STUDY OF GRAFFITI IN BATHROOMS

The place of a subject in an organization is associated to an identity, which takes to development of relationships and the construction of a history connected to what is legitimated in that context. What is not adequate in this sense becomes part of a marginal organization dynamics, which shows a communication also marginal. In this study, we deal with symbolic violence present in informal manifestations of communication in organization spaces. It was made an iconographic research in bathrooms of a public university. This spaces have been chosen because they are organizational nonplaces, allowing conditions to different expressions from other places of organization. In this research, based on photographies, we have identified graffiti, analyzed through content analysis which has allowed classification according chosen themes. Main data reveal that anonymous position and the fact of, for a moment, subjects be free of hegemonic social relations in organization, allow that people write on doors and walls making appointments, and deal with taboos, as recurrent references to sexuality. However, besides bathrooms be spaces free of punishment in a fort look, results suggest that even marginal communications are target of a symbolic violence, what highlights what is acceptable even in a marginal place.