Collective Practices and Public Problems: The Experience of Cartoneros and Environmental Promoters in La Plata (Argentina)

This article explores the activity carried out by urban waste pickers and cartoneras environmental promoters, members of the Excluded Workers Movement (MTE) and the Argentine Federation of Cartoneros, Carreros and Recyclers (FACCYR) in La Plata city (Argentina). By means of a qualitative approach and resorting to the contributions of the pragmatic perspective and urban studies, a case study is carried out that aims to account for part of the organizational trajectory of this collective and the way in which they configure a “public problem” on the social and inclusive management of collection and recycling. It is considered that crossing in the analysis the social demands, the daily urban practices undertaken by the cartoneros/as and the local urban public policies provide a perspective that accounts for conflicting senses of understanding the city and allows understanding the differential ways of producing urban space. It is concluded that, in the investigation of situated social practices, it is possible to recognize forms of mobilization and collective action that shape a public problem and, at the same time, generate other ways of experiencing the urban by vulnerable sectors.