Abstract

LUXARDO, Natalia; SASSETTI, Fernando  and  BELLO, Julio César. To make (and unmake) a living out of garbage. Trab. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.22, n.37, pp.289-310.  Epub July 01, 2021. ISSN 1514-6871.

This article - based on studies on health inequalities- analyzes the everyday life and work contexts of people living in the surroundings of an open garbage dump. Our goal is to define how making a living from working with waste structures people’s worlds and defines their risk exposure, forms of involvement, meanings and social relationships with differential impacts. Based on the approaches of social epidemiology, public health and critical medical anthropology, and using different inquiry strategies (ethnography and collaborative and audiovisual methods) we identify four worlds with increasing degrees of precariousness. We conclude that the studies on health inequalities must recognize the multiple forms these take in specific scenarios, avoiding economic, biomedical or other reductionisms in order to see their richness and complexity.

Keywords : open garbage dump; work; ethnography; collaborative anthropology; inequalities.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )