As estratégias de construção do reconhecimento em associações de catadores em São Luís: as dimensões individuais e coletivas

Abstract

Sociological approaches that analyze the activity of recyclable material collectors often focus on the economic and environmental aspects that permeate the situation of this social group. However, we realize that these agents go through the process of social stigmatization, sometimes permeated by a set of generalizing constraints and classifications, both with regard to the activity they perform and with regard to the process of invisibility that they go through individually during their trajectories. However, this process of stigmatization and invisibility is not inexorable, because, as shown by studies on the mobilization of subaltern social groups based on the theory of struggle for recognition (Axel Honneth), it is possible to overcome this situation by developing a grammar and actions that manage to reverse the situation of humiliation experienced. In this thesis, elaborated from the study of the work of recyclable material collectors in two organizations located in the municipalities of São Luís (ASCAMAR and COOPRESL), I identify the development of a struggle for recognition of a two dimensional character, that is, a process of positive affirmation of these collectors, which occurs both on an individual and collective level, that is, in the individual trajectory of each of them and in the process of building their respective organizations. In this sense, based on a qualitative investigation, based on interviews and a process of participant observation, I sought to observe which mechanisms of struggle for social justice and the search for self respect were triggered by collectors. of recyclable materials at ASCAMAR and COOPRESL. The results obtained by the research point to a process of construction of continuous recognition through the achievement of various contributions to carry out its activities, arising from various partnerships with private entities and public bodies, as well as the creation of its own grammar that aligns itself with the growing public recognition of the activity, especially with regard to the collective actions undertaken by these groups. In this way, the two dimensional struggle of collectors in the analyzed organizations has managed to subvert, through collective action, the experiences of constraints (recurring in the isolated activity of collectors), as well as providing the basis for increasing their visibility. ) that make up such actions.