A Identidade sócio-profissional dos catadores de lixo na cidade de Maputo: caso da Lixeira de Hulene

Abstract

This work addresses the process of building a socio-professional identity among waste pickers. trash. Most of the literature on the subject is limited to listing the risks that scavengers Are subjected to. The conception of risk they bring us is problematic because, according to Douglas (1974) the concept of risk and danger should not be generalized because they constitute realities conceived and managed socially and depend on the context. The other part of the literature argues that waste pickers are victims of discrimination by the society (Galdino and Malysz 2012). It is a relevant finding but it sins because it did not seek understand the ways of responding to this discrimination. In view of this reality, we seek with the our research understand how the garbage collectors identity construction process is in the face of a lot of discrimination denounced by most of the literature on the subject. The ethnographic study conducted at the Hulene dump shows that in an attempt to build a socio-professional identity far from stereotypes, collectors tend to differentiate themselves of others. There are scavengers who are called outcasts due to the fact that they work just to drink alcoholic beverages, they insult other workers as well as individuals who they pass by the street of the dump, they do not work to help the family. Therefore, this study shows that there is not only discrimination against society in relation to waste pickers, but also among waste pickers there is a certain exclusion or denial to those who do not behave within the social norms of respect to the norms of coexistence. On the other hand, this research shows that the garbage collection in Hulene's trash is a strategy subsistence, but it also constitutes a continuity of social life because within this activity there is a reproduction of social norms and those who do not respect them are excluded and denied as a professional. As the trash can is a place of many behaviors, the collectors who entitled honest face difficulties to take up the profession due to the existence of dishonest to carry out the activity. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)