“Waste Pickers” at the End of the Nineteenth Century: History of an Unfinished Professionalization (Buenos Aires, 1870-1911)

Abstract

This article examines the period of greatest development of the practice of waste sorting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the end of the nineteenth century. It aims to address the ambivalent way in which this practice was socially represented at a time when its economic value was not in doubt. In particular, it explores the difficulties encountered by these workers to become professionalized until they were displaced from socially recognized occupations at the beginning of the twentieth century. In so doing, it examines some interpretations regarding the persistence of a stigmatizing image of waste pickers, an image that is currently in full symbolic dispute due to environmental concerns. The article draws upon different sources, such as municipal memoirs and magazines, press, police records, plays, travelers’ diaries, photographs, and engravings.