The “double movement” and the distribution of urban poverty amongst Lagos and Mexico City's waste workers

Côme Salvaire

Chapter 13 in A Modern Guide to Urban Poverty, 2026, pp 269-293 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Based on a comparative ethnographic study conducted from 2015 to 2019 in two popular neighborhoods of Lagos and Mexico City, this chapter focuses on the distribution of poverty amongst workers who handle solid waste and recyclables in both megapolises. It documents the meso forms of non-market regulation that have developed within waste-related economies over the past two decades, as it addresses the role they have played in mediating macro-economic transformations and micro-level impoverishment. Drawing on the work of Polanyi, the chapter shows that the types of regulation developed within waste economies in Lagos and Mexico City can be understood as mechanisms of decommodification that developed in reaction to the economic transformations of the late twentieth century. While they partly shield workers from capitalist encroachments and intense labor competition, they concurrently sustain forms of inter-worker exploitation that play a central role in shaping poverty within urban waste economies.

Keywords: Africa; Latin America; Poverty; Waste; Informality; Labor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781800889682
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