Unemployment and the meanings of (non)work: Cirujeo in Buenos Aires

PERELMAN, MARIANO

Manila, Filipinas

Workshop; Second Workshop on Alternative Research Methodologies; 2008

SEASREP-SEPHIS

In Buenos Aires there are large number of people that live on the informal garbage collection. They look through the trash that can be recycled in an industrial way and also collect items that can be used in their homes. These people are known as cirujas or cartoneros (scavengers) In addition to garbage collection, scavenging also consists of sorting out and classifying what can be recycled, the cleaning of some material such as glass, tin, plastics, etc. Prior to this, carts must be got ready. The cirujeo is generally performed by the whole family group. Most of the time, there is an internal work division: children and women beg for money and food while men look through the big garbage bags. At other times, only one of the members of the family goes out to scavenge. Nevertheless, the whole family provides its work to sort out clean and sell what has been collected. During the nineties there was a strong social transformation in Argentina. Within this context, unemployment rose to the highest historical numbers. In 2002 Argentinean currency was devaluate. These processes contributed to the massive appearance of scavengers in the Buenos Aires streets. Although the activity has a long history, it is since 2002, that it has become much more visible. With the amazing increase of scavengers there have been qualitative and quantitative changes. During the first years of this century, unemployment had a historic high: thousands of people that used to be formal workers started to collect garbage in the street. I have differentiated between “new cirujas” (the ones that recently started to collect garbage and used to be formal worker) and “structural cirujas” (the ones that always have been cirujas). In this project, I aim to analyze the construction of Argentinean workers´ identity process and to analyze what happens when these identities are upset. In other words, how are these identities developed? Which practices and discourses support these identities? How do people that used to be formal workers feel and construct their identity when they are unemployed and when they are doing something that they look down on? How do people who were never employees construct their identity?