Discursive politics and poetics of collectors of recyclable materials: mechanisms of intervention in the social arena (Brazil)

Abstract

The intensification of discussions on sustainability, environment and waste management, along with the emergence of the Solidarity Economy proposal, have been pointed out as some factors that contributed to re-signify the activity of recycling recyclable materials. Over the last decades, waste pickers seem to leave a liminal area, aside from recognizing social structures, becoming central players in the solid waste management process. Noting the importance of discursive performances for the re - signification of the activity and for the strengthening of this social group, we analyzed the performances of recyclable waste pickers in Brazil as mechanisms for negotiating power through poetics and discourse politics. For this analysis we link the lens of the sociology of work with the anthropology of performance. We adopted a case study, exploratory and qualitative, using observational, ethnographic and semistructured interviews as instruments of research. The data analyzed are the result of a completed master's research and a doctoral research in progress, having been drawn from June 2015 to March 2018. The observations reveal how in the discourse collectors use poetics to raise awareness about social drama experienced by them and politics as a way of demanding from society and from public managers socio-productive inclusion, financing for their organization and technical support.