Between the Barrio and the City: Pathways of Work among Scavenging Families

Abstract

In this article, I will reconstruct, through brief stories, some of the traits that characterize the way of life of families in the El Salvador neighborhood, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, go scavenging everyday in Buenos Aires city. These stories will not only tell us who they are and how they arrived at the El Salvador neighborhood, from where, and in what manner they began to salir con la carreta, but will also permit us to move closer to the day-to-day existence of these families in relationship to their life in the barrio and the activities they engage in, thereby giving us a fuller understanding of family dynamics. In the research that originated this paper, I followed an ethnographical perspective to study and analyze the way of life of those families living from the recyclable waste they recollect in Buenos Aires city.