Waste Pickers’ Formalisation from Bogotá to Cartagena de Indias: Dispossession and Socio-Economic Enclosures in Two Colombian Cities

Laura Neville () and Luisa Fernanda Tovar Cortés
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Laura Neville: Institute of Geography and Sustainability, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Luisa Fernanda Tovar Cortés: Faculty of Economic Sciences, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá 110110, Colombia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Colombia is considered a pioneer in inclusive recycling in Latin America and the state-led formalisation policies are considered a referent for the socio-economic inclusion of waste pickers beyond the region. Nevertheless, more than 60,000 waste pickers in Colombia are struggling to remain in place despite these inclusive recycling and formalisation policies. This paper examines the implementation of formalisation policies and their consequences for the population of waste pickers by comparing evidence from two Colombian cities: Bogotá and Cartagena de Indias. The paper draws on extensive qualitative community-based research methodology with waste pickers in both cities guided by an interdisciplinary epistemological position to support Colombian waste pickers’ political struggle for recognition from a theoretical reflection. This paper shows how formalisation policies became a mechanism of manifold dispossessions in both cities. This paper categorises three forms of enclosures faced by waste pickers: (a) material and socio-economic; (b) bodily and spatial; and (c) political and organisational. Finally, this paper concludes by urging to consider the situated social, political, and cultural facets of waste pickers’ labour to enhance grassroots reflections on how to achieve greater levels of social justice and inclusion.

Keywords: waste pickers; waste labour; formalisation; cooperative recycling; dispossession; enclosures; Colombia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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