Recovering Requeche and Classifying Clasificadores: an Ethnography of Hygienic Enclosure and Montevideo's Waste Commons
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Recovering Requeche and Classifying Clasificadores: An Ethnography of Hygienic Enclosure and Montevideo’s Waste Commons Patrick O’Hare Clare College University of Cambridge July 2017 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology 2 3 Recovering Requeche and Classifying Clasificadores: An Ethnography of Hygienic Enclosure and Montevideo’s Waste Commons Patrick O’Hare This dissertation centres on Montevideo’s political and moral economy of discards as experienced through the lives and labour of waste-pickers around Uruguay’s largest landfill, Felipe Cardoso. These workers are known as clasificadores [classifiers] in recognition of their role separating whatever can be recovered from the waste stream from that which cannot. Drawing inspiration from their labour, this thesis explores how waste-pickers have themselves been classified by the state, and analyses the classification of discards carried out by municipal authorities. Conducted from a base next to the landfill as a resident of the COVIFU housing cooperative, 12 months of continuous fieldwork and several subsequent visits consisted principally of participant observation conducted with neighbours who worked the waste stream at nearby dumps, recycling plants, and informal yards. The burgeoning field of discard studies and the social science of waste has in recent years moved beyond a focus on waste as simply an object of social construction and human classification. This thesis builds on this literature by recognising the agentive role of the non-human in consecrating materials not only as waste, but also as a ‘commons’. A central idea is that Montevideo’s waste stream is comparable to the historic English commons in several key regards. These include the manner in which disputes over property status centre on use/ access rather than exchange/ ownership; the customary rights which are claimed by vulnerable subjects; and the provision of a refuge from wage labour. A central disciplinary contribution is forged by combining a renewed ethnographic interest in the commons with a historical perspective and the insights of the anthropology of infrastructure, kinship, and materiality. The commons that emerges is neither romantic nor post-capitalist but a vital, temporarily de-commodified space that thrives in the shadow of municipal infrastructure. The thesis is structured by the relationship between Montevideo’s waste commons and its attempted enclosure. Chapter two weaves ethnography of private and public sector waste managers with the history of municipal waste disposal in the city. It pinpoints technologies of containment and elimination as integral to a policy of ‘hygienic enclosure’ deemed necessary to limit waste’s capacity for hygienic and aesthetic chaos as part of attempts to grasp an ever-elusive infrastructural modernity. Chapter three moves from enclosure to the commons. It draws on ethnography conducted at the Felipe Cardoso landfill and explores waste-picker resistance to attempted hygienic enclosure before turning to historical comparison with the English commons. Chapter four narrows in on two material encounters – with melted ice-cream and plastic potatoes – that draw attention to the ways that particular materialities and affordances of what clasificadores call requeche (leftovers) prefigure both their emplacement in the waste stream and their extraction from it. Clasificador praxis is also shown to 4 disturb the boundaries of the landfill as well as those separating subjects from objects and rural from urban commons. Chapter five returns to infrastructure, demonstrating how waste sustains relations of care while also being ‘reversed’ by the social infrastructure of clasificador kin-based labour. The final chapter draws on ethnography conducted at Montevideo’s Aries recycling plant, arguing that recent government waste policy blends clasificadores’ value-based approach to the waste-stream with a Catholic orientation towards the accompaniment of the poor. In privileging jobs for clasificadores, the state maintains a link between waste and vulnerability but encloses only a fraction of waste-pickers in hygienic plants. Simultaneously, it transforms waste from a commons into a municipal resource, thus dispossessing a large majority of waste-pickers who remain in the informal sector. 5 Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. The total length of the dissertation is 79, 418 words 6 7 Contents List of Figures 9 Acknowledgments 11 Chapter One : Introduction: “La basura es de los pobres!”- “Rubbish belongs to the poor!” 13 Classifying Discards I 15 Waste Labour: Methodology and Fieldsite 17 Classifying Discards II 23 Wastes, Commons, and Suffering 28 Outline of the Thesis 35 Chapter Two: “All because we bought those damn trucks”: Hygienic Enclosure and Infrastructural Modernity 38 Classification and the Creation of Municipal Solid Waste 40 Enclosure Devices and Infrastructural Modernity 47 Eliminating Surplus Material and Populations 52 Shadow Infrastructures on the Waste Commons 59 Conclusion 63 Chapter Three: The Mother Dump: Montevideo’s Landfill Commons 65 Commons and Wastes 67 Felipe Cardoso: the (not so) Final Resting Place 68 “There will always be gateadores in the cantera”: Resisting Hygienic Enclosure 77 Chapter Four: “Born of the rubbish”: Material Encounters and Urban Nature 92 Junk Food and the Ontological Instability of Melted Ice- Creams 94 Plastic Potatoes and Urban Nature 102 Conclusion 110 8 Chapter Five: Classifiers’ Kinship and the Aftercare of Waste 113 Part One: Labour 117 The Cooperative 117 The Family Yard 120 The Landfill Brothers 124 Part Two: From Territory to Kinship in Cooperative Housing 127 Conclusion 138 Chapter Six: Care, (Mis) Classification, and Containment at the Aries recycling plant 140 Care 142 Mis (Classification) 152 Containment 161 Conclusion 168 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 170 Habitation 170 Commons 171 Infrastructure 175 New Enclosures 177 Bibliography (a) Journal Articles, Books, and Reports 180 (b) Newspaper Articles 204 9 Figures Figure 1 On the clasificador roadblock, with the fort of El Cerro in the background 15 Figure 2 Farm workers harvesting, as trucks line up to dump at the Usina 8 of Felipe Cardoso 22 behind them Figure 3 Location and estimated operational dates of Montevideo’s dumps (canteras) and usinas 54 Figure 4 Still-intact incinerator chimneys of the Usina II 57 Figure 5 Clasificadores at the Usina 5 in 1980. The caption reads: “Between smoke and rubbish, 57 they are also Uruguayans. Sign of poverty which indicates a licit way of earning the daily bread. Animals and men constitute a painful symbiosis of a distinct but not distant world” (El Día 1980: 18)- Figure 6 The Felipe Cardoso landfills in relation to Montevideo 72 Figure 7 The Felipe Cardoso waste complex 72 Figure 8 Soft toys at the home of one of Selva’s gateador neighbours, who recovered them for 86 his child Figure 9 Recovering metal from a truck at the cantera 86 Figure 10 Urban nature 103 Figure 11 Nona returning home from work at the family yard 108 Figure 12 Local families 116 Figure 13 A family birthday lunch with the Trastos. A line of pallets separates the domestic 122 space from the work-space of waste classification Figure 14 COVIFU neighbours 138 Figure 15 Female and male lifting at COFECA 150 Figure 16 Requeche taken from the conveyer belt at the Planta Aries 158 10 11 Acknowledgements This thesis was made possible by the openness, trust, and friendship of the clasificadores of Felipe Cardoso. And it would have been very different had not “Oscar” allowed us to stay in his cooperative home. To “Juan” and “Sofia” in particular: thank you for being such wonderful neighbours, and making us feel so at ease. I am full of admiration for your generosity, hard work, and good humour as you raise your beautiful family. There are many other families in COVIFU who also opened their doors to us, have my utmost admiration, and made of Montevideo a place that will always feel like home. I look forward to keeping up our friendships over the years. Thank you to the clasificadores at the cantera, at COFECA, at the Planta Aries, and beyond who allowed me to work alongside them even though I couldn’t cargar a bolson to save my life. I am also grateful to all the staff at the Intendencia de Montevideo, the Ministerio de Desarollo Social (MIDES), and all the other institutions who allowed me to conduct fieldwork inside their organisations. Back at the University of Cambridge, this thesis has benefitted from discussions with, and comments from, a range of colleagues. Thanks in particular go to Oliver, Felix, Sofia, Laurie, Matt, and Eduardo for their comments on chapter drafts at different points, and to Clara, Teo, John, Corinna, Patrick, Anthony, Chloe, Christos and Voula for proof reading and helping with graphics in the weeks before submission. Thanks to Christos for your intellectual support and inspiration over the past few years, to my study buddy and little sister Fiona, and to my Argentine counterpart Santiago for friendship and exchange. A short stay at the Nucleo de Pesquisas em Cultura e Economia (NuCEC) in Rio de Janeiro was invaluable for the critical commentary received, and an internship at the Center for Science and Policy (CSaP) was a welcome and stimulating experience in a wonderfully collegiate environment. And thank you to the office staff of the division of Social Anthropology and the Centre of Latin American Studies (Julie!) who have been so friendly and helpful over the years.