When recicladores become recyclers: industrial ethnography, technological imaginaries, and socio-conceptual transformation

Abstract (English)

'Recicladores' is the name given to those who make a living from recovering, classifying, transforming, and/ or recycling waste materials in Colombia. Often (mis)translated as ‘recyclers’ in English, the group’s preferred translation is waste pickers; these co-exist with other recycling actors such as bodegueros (aggregators) and plastiqueros (plastics transformers). Yet the waste picker organisational model in Bogota has precisely involved the transformation of a segment of waste pickers from those who simply “pick” materials to those who recycle and transform them industrially, thus altering their position in the plastics value chain. Effectively, the concept and legal definition of waste pickers has remained relatively constant, while the conditions of a group of waste pickers have changed, bringing them closer to those of an industrial proletariat. Drawing on close to 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bogotá’s 'reciclador' plastics plants, this paper explores how the model involves certain institutionalised caring practices directed towards waste pickers (e.g. the provision of workplace benefits and protections) yet has also necessitated a delicate dance of caring for the reciclador concept and policing its boundaries. Ironically, to qualify as a 'reciclador' in the eyes of the state, waste pickers cannot simply be employed as 'recyclers': instead, they must prove that they work on the streets recovering materials thus demonstrating a continuity of practice in the face of change. Attempting to redress a relative lacuna in the derivation of anthropological theory from industrial ethnography in recent years, in this paper I propose the concept of 'industrialisation-by-association' which refers not only to an associational model of industrialisation but also how waste pickers industrialise through association with a concept whose framework they must continue to adhere to in order to enable social, material, and technological transformation. In such contexts, what is the responsibility of the anthropologist in shepherding, experimenting with, and caring for concepts held dear by our interlocutors as we move through different ethnographic and institutional spaces?