Digitalization and professional work in social and welfare policy in Uruguay

Abstract

In this article we share a set of reflections on the integration and expansion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the management of social assistance services and benefits in Uruguay. Produced based on an exploratory and descriptive research project on the functions and effects of ICTs in the processes of control, tracking and classification of populations, social benefits and professional work in social protection policies, this article aims to expose and extend the discussions developed in this project, recovering and updating related materials and reflections. The observations are temporally located in the first two decades of the 21st century and include the intensification of this process during the social and health emergency generated by COVID-19. In this period we witness a series of institutional and technological transformations that motivate the debate about their contribution to state knowledge and capabilities, their transparent or opaque nature, the new forms of surveillance that they enable, in addition to their participation in the very constitution of the social “problem” and the “solution” tested. For this reason, we stop to examine the performance of these technological innovations considering their contribution to the automation of tasks and processes typical of socio-care policy, and especially, their effects on the configuration and nature of professional work. We consider that the management of the pandemic contributed to accelerating processes already suggested, rather than producing “new” phenomena in terms of the organization and control of work in social policies and services.