Lifelong learning and inexhaustible professional reinvention ^{1 2 3}

Abstract

The objective of the article is to analyze how working subjects are directed toward adaptation and renewal through lifelong learning. The empirical material consists of articles from the newspaper Valor Econômico and four interviews. The analysis presents three mechanisms: directing the subjects to a permanent search for updates; the need for endless adaptations; and directing the subjects to an unrestrained competition and individualization. The final considerations point out that, for being at war with themselves and with others, these subjects feel that they need, somehow, to be always after a new ability that will give them some differential and produce workability.

Keywords lifelong learning; governmentality; adaptability