Precarious works, inequality and public space. Waste collectors and ambulant vendors in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Abstract

Before the implementation of neoliberal policies in 1976,Argentina had almost full employment. The levels of the underutilized workforcewere low. So-called low productivity occupations had no major presence(Beccaria2001). After the civic-military coup in 1976 and especially during the neoliberaldecade (1989-2002), inequalities and unemployment grew apace, impacting sectorspreviously less vulnerable to economic shifts. Many informal activities, asgarbage collection (known as cirujeo or cartoneo) and ambulant selling,become a source of income for an increasing group of people. Neither cirujeo norambulant vending appeared for the first time over the long period of pauperizationfrom the 1970s through the 1990s. Both, though, were strongly re-signified overthat period. At the wake of the 21stcentury the informal collection became amassive phenomenon. Men, women and children were seen walking the city streetspulling carts and going through garbage bags, searching for any recyclableelement. Cartoneros collect from city streets, especially in the richest neighborhoodswhere the amount of waste and its quality are high. Interaction between poorand middle classes become daily. As in the case of the collection, ambulantvendors increased drastically. Popular commerce ?considered as informal,illegal, or illegitimate became a public problem. People selling in trains,buses, subways, and in streets generalized. Vendors are usually poor peoplethat need daily interactions in the central neighborhoods of the city.For them, the uses of public space of Buenos Aires (therichest city of the country) become a crucial resource. In a city used to livewithout the closeness of poverty, the presence of poor people in the publicspace produced strong effects on the subjectivities of porteños (residents ofthe city)and on the people that perform these tasks. It also created newinformal markets. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork with these two stigmatizedlabor practices performed in the public space of Buenos Aires, waste pickersand street vendors, the chapter deals with the modes in which socialinequalities are produced.