The national movement of the “collectors” of recyclable materials: actors, governance, regulation and emergent questions in the brazilian context

Abstract

In a context where the governing demands more and more everybody’s participation at public spaces, the National Movement of recyclable supplies collectors in Brazil seems to be increasingly contributing for the creation of an institutional environment where the fight against poverty and social exclusion becomes a reference. This group of workers, up to this moment highly discriminated, tries to change the social relations matrix, not only by means of a re-identification of an identity which has, through the years, been negatively associated to the proximity to the solid residues, but also demonstrating the centrality of the work, for the projects that fight against exclusion and for the citizenship. This way, this article aims to understand how this collective emergent is configured in the articulation and representation of debates on themes such as the regulation of the recyclable supplies collectors profession, the environmental regulation and the consequent re-signification of their social functions in the public arena. For that, we will use as a reference, na explanation about the collective of the collectors and their posterior representation as a social movement as well as their latest conquests. In our considerations, eventually, we’ll try to raise the issue of the environmental and professional regulation under the governing perspective, not only while an interaction process, but eminently relational; once there are diversified ways of actuation in the public arena, and there are also asymmetries present in such actuation, the governing is configured much more by ties and links than by a mutual and intermediate position, as the interaction ideas suppose.