INVISIBLE BETWEEN INVISIBILISTS: GARBAGE COLLECTORS AND EXCHANGE CLUBS AND THE CHALLENGE OF SOLIDARITY

Abstract

Since the 1980s, there have been the emergence of numerous income-generating and poverty-reducing initiatives and ventures. Among these experiences are those allocated in the field of Solidarity Economy comprising enterprises that share a certain set of principles and values, including respect for knowledge, horizontal relations of power through self-management and equitable distribution of resources. As the range of initiatives expands, some stand out, gaining notoriety due to the human and financial potential they mobilize, especially credit and agricultural cooperatives. However, still in the midst of solidarity-based enterprises, there are a number of initiatives relegated to invisibility, especially Exchange Clubs and Recyclable Material Pickers' Cooperatives, about which there are few studies or even references in the specialized literature on the field. In this sense we ask about the processes engendered in this double invisibility: they are groups that are outside the formal labor market and on the fringes of enterprises considered sufficiently relevant to claim resources and public policies. What is the social place in which the work produced by these agents is inscribed? What are the objective and subjective impacts of this double invisibility? From empirical surveys we intend to problematize questions about concepts such as work, gender and inequality.