Memórias Do Lixo: Luta E Resistência Nas Trajetórias De Catadores De Materiais Recicláveis Da Asmare1

Abstract

RESUMO O presente artigo teve por objetivo analisar o processo de luta e de resistência vivenciado por catadores de materiais recicláveis, vinculados à Associação dos Catadores de Papel, Papelão e Material Reaproveitável (ASMARE), localizada em Belo Horizonte (MG). Em termos metodológicos, adotou-se a História Oral e a Análise do Discurso, buscando analisar trajetórias de vida de associados da ASMARE. Os principais resultados apontam que o trabalho dos catadores ocupa um lugar de contradição na cadeia da reciclagem. Por um lado, existe a geração de renda e a produção de sentidos, que permitem a ressignificação do trabalho dos catadores como agentes ambientais, por outro, as condições em que se inserem ainda são precárias e de invisibilidade social. A árdua ocupação com o trabalho da reciclagem cria o desafio de os catadores lidarem com a constante ambivalência de sua condição, em que o trabalho ressignificado ainda disputa espaço com o preconceito e com a exclusão social.

Oral History and Organizational Research: Challenges of Building Knowledge about the Past

“…From the authors' point of view, the role of organizations in the reconstruction of these identities constitutes a good example of a reorientationist approach to history in organizational studies, prioritizing "the narrative approach to history, in line with the recent broader interest in interpretive or discursive orientations as opposed to the scientistic framing of organizational studies" (Usdiken & Kieser, 2004, p. 325). The study's type of analysis, as in Sousa et al (2019), fits well with interpretive theories of oral history literature, highlighting how life narratives invoke or conform to broader public discourses. Greater engagement with oral history literature could have brought up aspects related to individual memory in its connection to the social, not only showing how memory conforms to dominant social and cultural frameworks but also showing the critical reflexivity of individuals regarding acceptance or rejection of these frameworks (Green, 2004).…”

“…The third group, that of history "from below," of marginalized, silenced, or ordinary voices, relates to the second generation of oral historians who introduced militant oral history, oral history's hallmark. Particularly, the study by Sousa, Pereira, and Calbino (2019) is an excellent example of militant oral history, especially as it highlights the political importance of accessing ASMARE's history based on the narratives of subjects that are not commonly listed in official documents of public bodies such as the City Hall or the SLU. The use of oral testimony is advocated here not only as an alternative possibility to narrate historical events but as an act of resistance to a society that legitimized itself through writing, mainly in terms of official documents, denying subjects and communities that do not use this technique the writing of history.…”

“…Therefore, the meaning would be in the dialogue between the narrator and the listener, between the researcher and the transcription, between the text and the reader. The researcher's task would be to interpret these narratives in the light of the ideologies and of the social discourses naturalized by the narrator, showing how broader social structures permeate individual identity and consciousness -as in the research by Sousa et al (2019) and Rampazo and Ichikawa (2013) -and thus performed for (and with) an audience, in this case, the oral historian (Riessman,p.116).…”

Resistant recycling and recycling (r-)existences: self-organizing collective subjectivations of waste pickers in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil

“…This active posture is often overlooked in the literature on catadores . Their resistance is often presented as a matter of survival (Sousa et al, 2019; Accornero and Gravante 2022), where the choice of becoming a waste picker is characterized as a response against prolonged unemployment (Braga et al, 2015). Although the radical condition of vulnerability cannot be discounted, the risk of reducing resistance to a mere struggle for survival deprives catadores of their agency, relegating resistance to a necessary rebound, an automatic reaction to poverty.…”