Competências no ensino superior no curso de administração em tempos de biopolítica: assujeitamento e fortalecimento do homo oeconomicus

Abstract

This master thesis addresses the topic skills in Higher Education, focusing on skills in the Business Management Course in the current biopolitical scenario, aiming to analyze the discourse about skills proposed in Higher Education in Business Management based on some alternatives originated from Foucault’s theories that question subjection in a perspective that does not contribute to the strengthening of the homo oeconomicus in the scenario in times of biopolitics. In order to achieve the study’s general objective, specific objectives were delineated: historicizing skills in the Business Management Course connected to relations of forces and games of truth, identifying and pondering about the skills developed during the Higher Education in Business Management and relating the regulatory policies in each extent. Exploratory and descriptive research was chosen as research method, based on archaeological and genealogical concepts from the book “The birth of biopolitics” and other works by Michel Foucault and expounders. The contribution of this study in the scientific field relies on the limited number of studies that address this topic, whereas in the professional field it is connected to the work recognition of those who invest in qualification, and, finally, in the personal field it is related to a wider performance in academic research as well as to the change of updating some teaching practices. As a result, it has been found that, in the Foucaultian hypothesis, it is possible to analyze and reflect on the skills in Higher Education in Business Management considering the aspects of negative and positive biopolitics. In the negative perspective, a subjected subject is simply seen as a resource, while in the positive perspective, where life is above any instance, the human being is seen as the starting point. It is a view of human being. It is biopolitics on care of the self. This study is not intended to disregard the history of processes related to the Business Management Course; in fact, it offers possibilities for reflection focused on improving due to the complexity of the contemporary world, in which different biopolitical devices prevail, thus impacting on the production of subjects.