Recycling Economies in Latin America: Between Ethics, Environmentalism, and Economics

到目前为止，我的职业生涯涉及近十年的物质、情感关系和拉丁美洲循环经济及其工人的生活经历的研究。我最初的兴趣源于对非正规部门回收者的迷恋，这种生活可以由废物及其利润塑造，以及关注那些每天与垃圾工作最接近的人，可能会产生对废物的生产性反思。ESRC博士后奖学金将是一个宝贵的机会，可以通过互动研讨会将我过去和现在的研究成果传播给国际学术听众、相关国家的政策制定者和英国的小学生。随着环境变化的步伐加快，我的研究成果的宣传对于学术辩论、政策环境和后代的教育来说是最及时的。该奖学金还将用于加强关于乌拉圭和巴西政府支持的一个两国和合乎道德的回收项目的未来研究的建议。在我的博士后研究期间，我打算做的最重要的一项工作是将我的esrc资助的博士论文转化成一本书的手稿，并与一家美国大学出版商一起出版。本书提出的核心理论是，发展中国家，特别是乌拉圭的垃圾可以被视为现代的“公地”，面临着被占用和圈地的风险，在结构上相当于18世纪和19世纪英国的农村公地。通过与乌拉圭最大的垃圾填埋场及其周边地区的拾荒者（乌拉圭拾荒者）进行细致入微的民族志接触，本书将生动地展现在通常与风险和绝望贫困相关的环境中，“共同”资源的意义。这本书也将对越来越多的关于废物处理基础设施的文献做出重要贡献，特别是正式和非正式的废物劳动力之间的道德冲突，以及国家和影子基础设施。直到现在，我还无法回到乌拉圭展示我的研究成果。ESRC奖学金将使我有机会向蒙得维的亚和邻近的布宜诺斯艾利斯的学术专家、废物政策制定者和研究参与者介绍我的论文。随着回收的正规化在该地区继续快速发展，我的论文将构成一种紧急干预，重新考虑非正式的废物处理工作的作用，强调其作为对贫困家庭的宝贵支持的作用，以及其令人惊讶的快乐，滑稽和愉快的方面。研究金的一小部分捐款将用于资助将博士论文翻译成西班牙语，这是在外语环境中工作时重要的道德和实际考虑因素。同时，我将利用我的博士研究和我目前对拉丁美洲“纸板出版”现象的研究，撰写一系列期刊文章。这指的是用回收纸板制作书籍封面的小型独立出版商的繁荣，以及一场介于环保主义、政治和美学之间的运动。作为这个跨学科项目的临时研究助理，我的工作包括与瓜达拉哈拉和库尔纳瓦卡（墨西哥）的出版商进行人种学研究，并协调一系列影响活动。在获得ESRC奖学金期间，我将与露西·贝尔博士共同撰写一篇文章，利用这项研究，初步命名为“身体、书籍和巴里奥斯”。我还计划在我的研究期间，在曼彻斯特的学校举办纸板制作讲习班，之前在墨西哥和海伊音乐节（Hay Festival）上举办过。这些活动旨在提高文化素养、艺术表现力和环保意识。

My career to date has involved close to a decade of research on the materialities, affective relationships, and lived experiences of Latin American recycling economies and its workers. My initial interest stemmed from a fascination with informal sector recyclers, the kind of lives that can be fashioned from waste and its profits, and the productive rethinking of waste that might emerge from paying attention to those who work closest to rubbish on a daily basis. The ESRC post-doctoral fellowship would represent an invaluable opportunity to disseminate the findings of my past and current research to an international academic audience, policy-makers in relevant countries, and British schoolchildren through interactive workshops. With the pace of environmental change accelerating, the publicizing of my research would be most timely for academic debates, the policy environment, and the education of future generations. The scholarship would also be used to strengthen a proposal for future research on a binational and ethical recycling project supported by the governments of Uruguay and Brazil. The most important piece of work that I propose to undertake during my post-doctoral fellowship consists of the transformation of my ESRC-funded doctoral thesis into a book manuscript to be published with an American university publisher. The central theory set out in this book will be that waste in developing countries, and in Uruguay in particular, can be considered a modern-day 'commons', at risk of appropriation and enclosure and structurally equivalent to the the rural commons enclosed in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. Through detailed and nuanced ethnographic engagement with clasificadores (Uruguayan waste-pickers) in and around the country's largest landfill, the book will bring to life what it means to 'common' resources in circumstances normally associated with risk and desperate poverty. The book will also make an important contribution to the growing literature on infrastructures of waste disposal, particularly the ethical clash between formal and informal waste labour, and state and shadow infrastructures.Until now, I have been unable to return to Uruguay to present my research findings. The ESRC fellowship would allow me to present my thesis to academic specialists, waste policymakers, and research participants in Montevideo and neighbouring Buenos Aires. With the formalisation of recycling continuing apace in the region, the presentation of my thesis would constitute an urgent intervention that reconsiders the role of informal waste-work, highlighting both its role as an invaluable support to poor families, and its surprisingly joyful, ludic, and pleasurable dimensions. A modest contribution from the fellowship will fund the translation of key doctoral thesis findings into Spanish, an important ethical and practical consideration when working in a foreign-language environment. Simultaneously, I will work on a series of journal articles which draw on both my doctoral research, and my current research on the Latin American 'cardboard publishing' phenomenon. This refers to the boom in small, independent, publishers that make book covers from recycled cardboard, and to a movement that sits at the intersection of environmentalism, politics, and aesthetics. My work as a temporary research assistant on this interdisciplinary project involves conducting ethnography with publishers in Guadalajara and Cuernavaca (Mexico), and the coordination of a series of impact activities. I will draw on this research for one article to be co-written with Dr Lucy Bell during my ESRC fellowship, preliminarily entitled 'Bodies, Books, and Barrios'. I also plan to impart cardboard bookmaking workshops, previously carried out in Mexico and at the Hay Festival, at schools in Manchester during my fellowship. These are designed to promoting literacy, artistic expression, and environmental consciousness.