ASSOCIATIVISM AMONG URBAN WASTE PICKERS IN BRAZIL

The article is based on the Sociopoetics methodology and is theoretically supported by Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ critical sociology, especially the sociology of absences and emergencies and the prospect of Epistemologies of the South. It was conducted with recycling cooperatives in the city of Canoas, southern Brazil. The object is the knowledge and social practices produced in contexts of collective life among poor workers who have in the association to collection and treatment of urban recyclables an alternative to improve their living conditions. Knowledge involves perceptions and representations covering identity and sociocultural expressions of these subjects. The research conducted so far shows that precariousness and social disqualification remain in their daily experiences; economic inclusion is limited, and the obtained income is not always enough. There is, however, the ability to produce processes of change in their living conditions by entering in a context of political participation and access to public policies.


INTRODUCTION
To understand the reality of a group of urban waste pickers in the Brazilian context, we use the theoretical concepts of the sociology of absences and emergencies (Santos, 2002;2006, 2009).The concern is epistemological, and the object of study was defined as the knowledge -and the social practices that it generates -produced in collective life contexts among very poor subjects who find in the association a means to improve their living conditions.The knowledge is seen not exclusively as a cognitive concept but one which involves their identitarian and socio-cultural expressions.
The social experience produces and reproduces the knowledge and presupposes an epistemology, defined as a way of conceiving things and assumptions about what consists of valid knowledge (Santos, Meneses, 2009).There is, therefore, no knowledge without practice and without social actors engaged in producing it.In modern societies poverty is not just the state of dispossess.It corresponds to a specific, "inferior" and devalued social status, which marks the identity of those who live this experience (Paugam, 2003, p. 46).
The sociology of emergencies is an analytical tool used for the understanding of multiple social phenomena.In Brazilian literature, there are references to studies in education (Rosa, 2020;Valle, 2021), occupational therapy (Lussi, 2020) and collective health (Nunes;Louvison, 2020).
We are interested in the knowledge produced by these groups of people, which are considered "inferior" in the hegemonic logic of hierarchization of social recognition.Social actors who are invisibilized by their condition of "inferiority" produced by being poor, little schooling and little chance of entering the formal labor market, such as urban waste pickers.In the production of invisibility, it is as if there were an "intersubjective disappearance of a man amongst other men, as an acute expression of two psychosocial phenomena that take a chronical character in capitalist societies: social humiliation and reification" (Costa, 2004, p. 63).

THE REALITY OF THE WASTE PICKERS IN BRAZIL: SEEKING AN UNDERSTANDING THROUGH THEORY
In this section, we describe the reality of urban waste pickers in the Brazilian context and seek a way to understand it in the theoretical articulation with Boaventura de Sousa Santos' critical sociology.Through this understanding, which is one possible approach -there are many others, of course -we develop the arguments based on the social practices of the actors we interact with during the field research.We choose this specific approach because Santos is an author whose work concerns the production and validation Brazilian municipalities produce large volumes of solid waste, which makes the public management of urban waste very difficult.Recyclable material collectors -the waste pickers -are the base of the recycling production chain in Brazil.Despite this, they are viewed with prejudice, and socially devalued.
There are many workers, who work on their own, recollecting waste in the streets and selling the material in small quantities, which is financially disadvantageous.In the Brazilian context, the collection of recyclable materials involves highly vulnerable work, and public policies are needed to mitigate the effects on the health of waste pickers (Carvalho et al, 2020).However, studies that analyzed the garbage collectors' cooperative considered that participation in the group enabled them to recognize their work, creating a new meaning for them.(Silva et al 2020;Cabral, 2022) Many of them, however, join labor cooperatives.When associated, they achieve better working conditions, and access new experiences such as attending cooperative workshops and taking part in university research projects and extension activities.On the other hand, when working in cooperatives they need to adapt to rules and schedules, which not everyone adapts well to.This is one reason why a significant number of waste pickers prefer to continue working on their own, or with family members only (Silva, 2018).
In a deeply unequal country like Brazil, these are poor workers that live in urban peripheries, with many infrastructure problems.According to Martins (2003, p. 83), the recovery of waste gains considerable importance as a possibility of occupation for excluded populations in poor and/or unequal countries.The author mentioned case studies of cooperatives and associations in India and Colombia, where 6,500 workers benefit from this activity.
The data from Latin America and the Caribbean tells us that circa 540,000 tons of solid waste are produced in the region per day.In Brazil, in 2018 it was around 71.6 million tons.However, the recycling production chain is unfair in the southern part of the American continent.Most of the sector's profits go to the industries.Pickers form the base of a productive chain which could be represented as a pyramid, whose apex is occupied by the transformation and processing industry.Between the bottom and the top, there are economic agents acting as intermediaries (deposits and junkyards), who also appropriate part of the profits.These intermediate agents buy, generally at low prices, the material that the pickers collect.When they sell in larger quantities, pickers can get slightly better prices.There is also the participation of the municipal government, which is responsible (following what had been established in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988) for the public management of solid waste in Brazilian cities.Although there were specific investment initiatives in municipal selective collection programs, and agreements with cooperatives, few Municipalities consolidated effective programs before 2010.Many of them want to privatize these services, hiring private companies.Waste pickers fight against these policies that would take away the income they live on.
It is, therefore, a scathing problem in ethical, economic, and societal terms.Such a reality needs to be known globally and locally and if possible, this same knowledge should contribute to transforming such reality.
A set of enterprises analyzed in the segment of collection and sorting of recyclable waste indicates that there is a clear differentiation, for the better, in the life condition of the associated collectors from their insertion in cooperatives (Pizzio, 2007;Veronese;Ferrarini, 2011;Motta, 2023).Cooperatives are identified as tools for socio-labor insertion because they offer better working conditions and some additional income.It would be a process of transposition of the abyssal lines -the epistemic line that divides the society between those who are subjects of rights and those who are not -especially when they are linked to social movements of expression such as the MNCR (National Movement of the Collectors of Recyclable Material) and when they have access to resources from public and private organizations.
The popular cooperatives for the collection and recycling of urban waste emerged as an alternative of work for those excluded from formal jobs in Latin-American cities.It is up to us to investigate how this format fits into the perspective of solidarity economy and in the struggles for recognition of the social actors involved in them.Reflecting on the social and solidarity economy in global comparative terms implies an ethical-political intention: one needs to reflect on its "decolonization".This call for decolonization "requires the identification of processes through which hegemonic epistemology and rationality produce the absence of knowledge" (Meneses, 2009, p. 235;Posholi, 2020).
Modern societies have been abysmally divided between those who have and those who do not have access to symbolic and material goods, therefore, between those who are full citizens and those who are not.In such a system of visible and invisible distinctions, those who are on "the other side of the line" disappear as a reality, becoming non-existent, a non-existence which is produced.Inexistence means to not exist in any form of being relevant or understandable." (Santos, 2006, p. 56).The Epistemologies of the South are understood as the knowledge, the social practices and the worldviews of groups that are marginalized and subordinated by the violence of the colonial process, also called resistance cultures (Gauthier, Fleuri and Grando, 2001).Colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy are related phenomena that have worked to make disappear -through invisibility or disqualification -ways of knowing and living not aligned with their principles.
The subjects who still resist nowadays and live-in ways that are not well integrated with the capitalist western society suffer a process of exclusion, invisibility, or social disqualification.At the same time, these subjects produce individual and collective life strategies, work and eventually militate in social movements.The epistemologies of the South refer to these cultural existences, which produce habitus, behavior, and values (Nunes, 2019).
One of the most striking features in contemporary societies is the fact that material or economic inequality is related to non-material inequality: the unequal education, the inequality of communication and expression, and the opportunities to organize and participate autonomously in political processes.
Even today, waste pickers experience precarious living conditions on the outskirts of large cities.They experience the so-called ethical-political suffering, which Sawaia (1999) claims to be the result of the adverse social conditions.Ethical-political suffering, however, can generate social transformations as well, especially when it triggers collective actions.The social spaces in which they circulate generally deny and stigmatize them; they experience specific suffering that can modify their insertion in the same spaces if this experience is transformed into struggling for recognition (Miura, 2004).
After all, as Honneth (2003) affirms, the struggle for recognition always begins when one experiences the disrespect in the forms of sought recognition.For the author, there are three basic spheres or modes of recognition: love, rights, and solidarity.The disrespect for love is found in mistreatment and suffering violations, which threatens the physical and psychic integrity of the subject, their sense of self-esteem and personal value.The disrespect for their rights occurs in the deprivation of socio-economic rights and exclusion, which affects subject integrity as an integral part of a political-legal community.And the disrespect for solidarity is the degradation, offense, and discrimination suffered which affect the feelings of honor and dignity of the individual as a member of a cultural community of shared values (Salvadori, 2011).
Considering the waste pickers, eventually, all these forms of disrespect were experienced.The ethical-political suffering stems precisely from the disrespect suffered by a citizen who cannot achieve the experience of full citizenship.This means security, dignified income, social protection, and esteem among the extended members of their community.In this context, the emergence of a social movement at a national level is of extreme importance and denotes a broad struggle, supported by other social

THE EMPIRICAL FIELD
In the early 1980s, in São Paulo, a group of nuns, who worked with homeless people, identified that many of them sought their livelihood in discarded waste such as cardboard, cans, aluminum, glass, and plastic (Silva, 2006).Although they were not organized in a collective group, they worked in different parts of the city, making a selective waste collection, and selling it to middlemen.Thus, as reported by the same author, in July 1985, from an initiative of these Benedictine nuns, the Association of Paper, Cardboard and Waste Pickers of São Paulo was created, whose purpose was to be a defense and support body for the interests of cardboard waste pickers as well as to promote their organization.Also in São Paulo, in May 1989, the first recycling cooperative in Brazil was created.The perspective of the generation of income and autonomy motivated, during the whole decade of 1990, the articulation, and the extension of cooperative work in several cities of Brazil.In that decade, the Association of Paper (ASMARE) was founded in Belo Horizonte-MG, one of the largest Brazilian cooperatives and the only one to have a recycling plant run by the waste pickers themselves.
The waste pickers through the First Encounter of the Recyclable Material Collectors that took place in the city of Belo Horizonte, in September 1999, created the National Movement of Recyclable Material Pickers (MNCR, the acronym in Portuguese).At that first national meeting, another meeting was set to take place in June 2001, which ended up being an articulator of the category throughout Brazil.A document, prepared by the pickers, which is available on the website of the movement, expresses the needs of those who survive from the collection of recyclable materials.(National Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Materials, 2014a).
The National Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Materials (2010) estimates that approximately 800 thousand waste pickers are active in Brazil.This social movement organizes the category to fight for better work and living conditions, aiming for dignity and a higher valuation as the basis of the productive recycling chain.According to the website, the collective principle is "to guarantee class independence, which dispenses the speech of political parties, governments and businessmen on our behalf" (National

Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Materials, 2014b).
The movement has grown and has transformed social relations through the resignification of their collective identity and has also given new meanings attributed to their work (Lima, 2008).It is important to emphasize that it is not a matter of victimization as there is still a life condition that is far below what is 375) points out, are "the poorest of the urban poor", with lower social status, for whom garbage collection on the streets is often the only source, quite often precariously, of survival.
Waste pickers' associativism can minimize vulnerability in negotiations with the industries or with the intermediaries who buy their material (Calderoni, 1998).By forming groups, the workers tend to develop an identity of resistance that helps overcome the stigma that disqualifies them.Through a comparative survey among urban waste pickers who worked alone and others who worked in cooperatives, it was concluded that the associates had a much better knowledge of the recycling process, besides reporting a higher self-esteem (Pizzio, 2007).However, the study warns that despite the gains in social and economic qualification, there were still aspects of precariousness in the life of the associated pickers.
The presence of people living in the trade of waste materials dates from the beginning of the process of industrialization.In colonial Brazil there were already records of people who collected household waste and were discriminated because of that.(Cabral, 2015;Motta, 2023;Rosaldo, 2024).At the beginning of the 20th century, with the increase of the printing industry, paper was already being recycled.The "bottle loader", a respected figure in the neighborhoods and towns of the cities, disappeared over the decades and gave way to the waste picker who, in turn, collects the recyclable waste from different places, without having to pay anything for that (Pinhel, 2013).In the case of the city of Belo Horizonte, historical records indicate that the pickers had already been active in the city since at least the 1930s (Dias, 2002).
Waste collection in Brazil formally emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Galbiati, 2004), when waste management systems were implemented in some cities, expanding the recycling activities.For this reason, agreements were signed between the cooperatives of formalized pickers and the local public authority.Agreements generally meant supplying material through regular selective city collection and other forms of financial and technical support.The sorting, bundling and sale of the material are done by the cooperative.(Martins, 2003).
From the early 90s until now, some programs which encourage recycling have been carried out by city halls in some cities.A pioneering example is the Câmbio Verde program in Curitiba, capital of the state of Paraná, which has been active since 1990.It was created to establish the swap of recyclable materials and cooking oil for seasonal horticultural food products.This swap takes place in public spaces and happens every fortnight.In addition to collecting more material for local recycling cooperatives, it helps with food security for poor families.
In 2002, the profession of waste picker was included in the Brazilian Classification of Occupations.
Unfortunately, this formal recognition did not result in better working conditions and remuneration for this professional category.Even though the waste pickers' work provides economic and ecological benefits,  (Rosaldo, 2017).
Associativism is a factor that has the potential to generate learning processes, community insertion and a minimum income for workers in the case of the very poor ones (Veronese;Ferrarini, 2011).There is always the risk of dependence on public policies of induction; however, the importance of public support for initiatives is fundamental so that they can persevere and achieve better economic and social results.
The Institute of Applied Economic Research (2013) revealed around 400,000 registered pickers, 32% of which would be women; the data were questioned by the MNCR, which affirmed that there were 800,000 collectors and that approximately 70% of them would be female.This discrepancy was explained by the high level of informality that characterizes this sector: many workers are informal, without any formal registration, whether individual or associative.According to the public agency, made from informal relations, which do not allow pickers access to a range of labor rights, "the high level of informality makes their recognition difficult for public administration bodies and research institutions" (Institute of Applied Economic Research, 2013: 6).
There has been some evolution in terms of public policies for the field of recycling.In 2010, a regulatory framework was implemented to strengthen the collectors and their associative organizations: The National Solid Waste Policy (PNRS).The approval of the PNRS Brazil, federal law 12.305/2010 (Brazil, 2010), constituted a legal regulatory framework for the integrated management of solid waste in the country and launched challenges for the implementation and improvement of the selective collection in Brazilian municipalities.
The service of the selective collection in Brazil is operated by the municipalities themselves, either in an outsourced manner or in partnership with pickers organized in associations and cooperatives (Institute of Applied Economic Research, 2010).The Solid Waste Policy of Brazil proposes the strengthening of the selective collection with the integration of the organized collectors.Although the municipal solid waste management is a municipal assignment, the PNRS establishes mechanisms to induce this selective collection model through economic resources for municipalities that elaborate their Integrated Waste Management Plans following this guideline.
However, it is up to the municipalities and states of the federation to prepare their own Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, defining how it will take effect in their territory.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A SPECIFIC EMPIRICAL RECORD IN THE RECYCLING UNIVERSE
Coopcamate is a cooperative located in the city of Canoas, state of Rio Grande do Sul (a mediumsized city in southern Brazil).The process of forming this organization began in 1986 when five people started organizing a group of recyclable waste collection in their neighborhood.The work began in a pavilion and as the group needed an association to continue acting.For five years they were collecting the material on foot, borrowed vehicles, or through actions of the mothers' clubs, ecclesial communities, and local schools.Since then, they have used the community bonds to boost the association.
After several debates among social actors of the local community, local government, associated pickers in 2010 began participating in the shared selective collection program.This agreement consists of receiving public funds through a contract for the transportation of collected material which has made it possible to increase the number of members and purchase equipment to facilitate and leverage the work.
The sociopoetics methodology is a type of participatory research proposed by Jacques Gauthier (Gauthier, Santos, 1996;Gauthier, Fleuri and Grando, 2001;Silveira et al, 2008;Santos;Cordeiro, 2020) based on research carried out with indigenous communities in the New Caledonia and with poor communities in Northeast Brazil.It is based on five principles.The first one states the construction of a research group, not a "researcher", but a group that seeks to overcome hierarchical relations of which the institutional researcher is also part of, and everyone is responsible for the research paths.In this proposal, the institutional researcher avoids the impetus of being the "owner" of the speeches, analyses, and dissemination of results.The research is conducted with the subjects and not about the subjects.
The results will be the elaboration of concepts by the research group (Gauthier, Fleuri and Grando, 2001).
The group is the author of the concepts produced, drawn from affections, not only from pure cognitive action.Once the group of pickers created concepts for the research, we put cognitive justice into practice (Meneses, 2009;Álvares de Andrés, 2023).
The research team, two undergraduate and two graduate students, received training in sociopoetics methodology.Field visits for participant observation, individual and group interviews, and ethical aspects of the relationship with the researched group were some of the topics covered in the training seminars.
For six months, the research group dedicated itself to the study of sociopoetics methodology, through theoretical seminars and practical workshops.Studies involving pickers and texts by reference authors in sociopoetics methodology were read and discussed, such as Jacques Gauthier (Gauthier, Fleuri and Grando, 2001;Gauthier, 2004).Then, the research team went to the field seeking to produce, through sociopoetics workshops, a listening space to produce meanings, together with the associated workers.
The method foresees the participation of resistance cultures, which are represented by those subjects excluded from access to recognized official knowledge and academic knowledge, such as those on the other side of the abyssal line (Santos, 2009).Thirdly, Gauthier proposes that in the research process attention be paid to the entire body of those who are part of the research group.Different social groups have different ways of organizing and producing their knowledge, and they do not always occur in a linear and "rational" manner.The body, in its intense bio-psycho-social possibilities, can be a source of precious insights about the realities of the subjects (Weeks, 1999).The body is related to the origins of each person's class, gender, ethnicity / race, and their relationship with their context, which is sometimes difficult to express verbally.
Different artistic techniques are used for data production.It is not just a matter of observing and listening to reports from the observed groups, but to use various techniques of data production (Gauthier, Fleuri and Grando, 2001).The encounter between Sciences and Arts continuously and repeatedly fertilizes each of them (Ianni, 2004) since reflection and critical analysis is the very nature of science, dialoguing and hybridizing languages.
Participatory research is widely used in studies with populations in the context of poverty in Brazil.
As in the case of waste pickers, it is a method that can cause changes in the ways they live and work.
That is, in addition to being a way of collecting research data, it can also build, together with the subjects, the social changes that are proposed by the group, with the objective that these changes are thought and operationalized by pickers themselves.When it comes to working with garbage, in which there are several demands for rights and improving working conditions, this method may contribute to producing emancipatory processes.
The instituted logic of social science knowledge is strongly based on discourse.By proposing the use of body and vocal expression techniques, drawings and sculptures, the potential to produce valid knowledge is credited to the other dimensions of human cognition.
Finally, Gauthier ponders that the sociopoetics study culminates in the generation of a product defined by the group.The method demonstrates its intention to break with the rigid position of the academic researcher as the only valid and intelligible holder of knowledge who will benefit from the research achievements.The group should benefit from the results of the research as a co-author of the knowledge produced.If an aesthetic activity can achieve ethical-moral and political goals, examples being artistic activities in prisons, among homeless people and in rural settlements or urban occupations, it can be inferred that, among the cultures of resistance, art is an integral part of its search for expression and insertion in the world, in participatory research (Oliveira,1998).
As Greenwood (1993) states, sociopoetics is always an emergent process that works effectively to link participation, social action, and knowledge generation.The workshops start with relaxation techniques to allow subjects to be more prone to verbal and non-verbal expression.It goes on to the discussion of the research theme, through the application of group dynamics techniques, such as the Theater of the Oppressed (Boal, 1998).The subjects can express themselves with dramatization (role-plays) and creation of scenes from their daily lives, which are very useful to express feelings and emotions as a kind of knowledge that emerges from the bodies.As Dennis (2016, p. 66) states: "I sought to complement our traditional uses of participant observation, interviews, and focus groups with less typical ethnographic methods.One of several innovative methods to which I turned to was Boal's (1985) Theater of the Oppressed".
Sociopoetics draws from the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1997), Theater of the Oppressed (Boal, 1988(Boal, , 1996)), and Participatory Action Research (Brandão, 1998(Brandão, , 1999)).It is compatible with the perspective of the Epistemologies of the South and its ethical-aesthetic orientation since it contains a North-South translation experience, besides promoting interdisciplinarity.The researcher, called a facilitator or mediator, promotes dialogue, and raises questions to start the debate.The group will be able to explain other issues related to their reality since it is a participatory action research.Each subject brings within themselves, on their own bodies, knowledge which emerges from cultural and historical roots (Gauthier, Fleuri and Grando, 2001).
During the meetings, there is no typical interview or observation, but rather a participatory group work.After the relaxation techniques, the group proposes artistic, creative, verbal, and nonverbal ways to express their way of understandings, thoughts and feelings about the themes raised.They can also propose new questions and possible solutions.It was in this way that we conducted the group work during this research.We had four group meetings, each one lasting three to four hours, on work mornings that were followed by collective lunches for group fraternization.The group proved to be quite participatory in the activities.
At Coopcamate, the research group chose a generative theme that happens in their daily lives: learning to cooperate in work and in life.The aim of the research, from the very first meeting, was defined as "true cooperation", which was translated as "high-intensity cooperation" at the end.We concluded there is no perfect, "true" model, but a way to cooperate that each one creates and performs.The groups were made up of around 20 workers of both sexes.Their ages ranged between 22 and 71 years old.The average age was 45 years old.The participants were all residents of the outskirts of the city of Canoas-RS.
The majority declared themselves black or brown (pardo in portuguese).Some were founding members, the younger ones had joined in recent years.However, there was not the high turnover that is common in The conflict appeared most clearly in relation to the president of the cooperative, who they considered authoritarian even though he had been elected in the assembly.
We approached the group through mutual acquaintances.We explained to them that we were interested in the daily life of a group of waste pickers trying to work in a cooperative/self-managed way.We were interested in the things they knew and how they solved their conflicts.We proposed the sociopoetics research method, in which they would also choose what they wanted to research and find out about themselves.We explained, in simple words that they could understand, what "knowing" and "researching" meant to us.
Based on the method, we considered knowledge not as an exclusively cognitive, but fluid and dynamic instance, including affections and emotions.Knowledge is the whole process of giving meanings to one's world.The "disqualified" knowledge, according to Santos (2006;2019), produced to be absent in society, is invisibilized and discarded as a credible alternative due to the production of non-existence.It reproduces inequalities and there are some ways of producing non-existence, which are embodied in the logic of thought inherent in capitalism and in its form of rationality.
There are five logics of non-existences identified by Santos (2004), which constitute monocultures in the epistemological, temporal, social, scalar, and productive dimensions.The social production of these absences results in the subtraction of the world and wastes social experience.The sociology of absences poses the need to call into question each one of these excluding logics.In this questioning, it proposes to replace the monoculture of scientific knowledge with an ecology of knowledge that makes possible the epistemological dispute among different kinds of knowledge, rescuing the plurality that makes up society (Maiello, 2022).
Consequently, there are five main social forms of non-existence attributed to the groups that were excluded as a credible alternative.Thus, the nonexistent will be the ignorant, the residual, the inferior, the local, and the unproductive.This theorization is particularly relevant in the case of the selfmanagement analysis of urban recyclers.Eventually, these subjects inserted in these experiences of popular associativism suffer all these forms of disqualification for being poor, often non-white, having low schooling and living in peripheries.The participants were poor workers, often non-white, whose jobs are poorly paid and undervalued, but who nonetheless find a disposition for labor association and collective living.This is precisely why we chose this theoretical perspective to support our research.
Waste pickers deal everyday with the worst possible material: garbage, something nobody likes, let alone have it around.Being identified with the garbage, in a country of brutal inequalities like Brazil, they become objects of the production of absences.Being considered inferior is a way of being absent from the 183 most valued social spaces, from the social layer that has access to rights and social recognition.It happens not only in a symbolic sense, but also in a material sense, given the fact that they live in scarcity, without full access to social rights and recognition.For this reason, the sociology of absences provokes a critical debate, whose focus is precisely on these oppressed populations (Santos;Cordeiro, 2020).We believe, as Santos (2006;2019), that they can produce valuable knowledge, that they can think and act in ways considered rational and smart.
It is noteworthy that this analysis is based on a critique of metonymic reason, which is a constituent part of the sociology of absences and emergencies (Santos, 2002;2006).In other words, it seeks to break with the logic that all production of meaning needs to be conferred by a dichotomous relationship.That is to say, the understanding of the world that metonymic reason promotes is partial and selective, trapped in a limited understanding of the world.This is an analytical logic, therefore, that questions the very dictates of Western scientific production, seeking to consider other elements from a South-South perspective.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
We present, in this section, some of the research's results.Despite the contradictions in the field of recycling, we identified some positive aspects during the process.Given some conditions, such as the support of the local government and community awareness, important changes can take place.It can occur when grassroots learning and educational practices are engaged in waste management.(Gutberlet, 2021).
The work done by these subjects of collecting, transporting, organizing, storing (in rare cases, enriching) recyclable waste, allows urban waste to obtain market value, generating income for the poor families.The picker operates a transformation that has a symbolic value: they recycle themselves in this process, acquiring a social role with meaning and importance in the productive chain of recycling.
Among the most emerging public policies, aspects for the regulation and mitigation of risks at work can be considered.The absence of labor and social rights produces a series of effects, such as the recurrence of low pay to the category, even below the minimum wage (Silva et al, 2022).
The collected data analysis reveals that, although they eventually coexist with shame and humiliation, stemming from the discrimination and prejudice that society still manifests, being a waste picker can generate positive and aggregating experiences.(Gutberlet et al, 2023).This positive feeling comes from being recognized as an honest worker, distinct from the activity of beggars and thieves, acquiring the ability to organize and mobilize collectively in the struggle for better working and living conditions.It is at By observing the way in which the subjects reacted to the sociopoetics work, we can identify some elements.The combination of associated work and formative processes provides an emancipatory process which, though still incipient, already seems capable of partially changing their lives.The waste pickers can create a way of production that puts together economic, social, and environmental criteria, as Lima and Oliveira (2017) point out.Collective learning appears as a very important factor in this process, catalyzing insights.
For instance, one of the workers revealed to be in psychological distress during a sociopoetics session.She made a drawing with a text (the aim of which was to express her feelings to be embraced by the group) and it was a cry for help.Everyone was impressed, as they did not imagine that she was in so much suffering.From then on, what was previously hidden was noticed and a protection network was formed.The girl was referred to the community health service so that she could receive professional help.
Sociopoetics catalyzed this group process, but it was the associated workers who led it.Such elements become research data because the orientation of sociopoetics implies the production of knowledge from different powers of the body, such as expressions of sensitivity, emotion, imagination, etc (Gauthier;Adad, 2020).
Creating and sharing knowledge is what drives them, though they do not express themselves exactly that way.On the word "knowledge", Puiggrós (2009) understands competencies for work in selfmanagement like a singular interpretation of cultural elements that alter the cognition of the subject.
Once the group chose the research theme, after a brainstorm to identify the "generative theme", cognitive justice was put into practice, because the researcher did not choose previously the research question, imposing it on the group.It was a process of collective construction.
From the techniques of relaxation, creative visualization, drawing and theater of the oppressed, we come to identify a central problem brought by the group: the suffocating silence.It had to do with the theme of power relations, of non-shared authority, and expressed the difficulty of being able to move freely in a dynamic set of roles that differentiates the cooperative model from the hierarchical private enterprise model.Hence, they concluded that they should know how to welcome, how to listen and how to talk without criticizing each other in a scathing manner.The reproduction of authoritarian, vertical relations that oppress appeared in the form of that which was left unspoken, the suffocated, the daily oppression At some point of the meetings, the group created a short story together which goes like this: A sincere and honest person named John joined the cooperative and was judged and rejected.The group did not understand the meaning of cooperativism, which is welcome, acceptance and generous teaching of tasks.But John, the character of the short story, did not give up.He insisted, demonstrating his potential with courage and dignity, working very hard and trying to communicate with others, helping everyone.He ended up showing his importance and becoming indispensable to the cooperative.His potential included understanding the social dynamics of the group, and so he managed to unite the members.After that, he was more comfortable, and more open to sharing his opinions, mediating the discoveries, and could contribute to the improvement of the cooperative.After the conclusion of the short story, the group was invited to enact their story as a play (the Theatre of the Oppressed) which rendered some good laughs.
Gradually, the research group identifies the nodes that clutter up their long sought "high-intensity cooperation", verbalizing that the most difficult thing is to change something once they realize what is wrong.But we can consider that the very process of actively researching is a way to overcome the ethical-political suffering due to the identity of the picker (Miura, Sawaia, 2013).Once the group can adequately address their problems in the management of the cooperative, they are strengthened to face the difficulties of daily work.Power inequalities had to be addressed during sociopoetics meetings.They decided that they should have a weekly meeting to work on this, to achieve better results.The ecology of knowledge needed to be built within the cooperative, to strengthen the search for visibility with the city hall and the Canoas' larger community.
It is possible to consider that social practices are based on the subjects' perception of social reality, meaning the production of knowledge about the world.With the increased awareness of their reality, resistance movements to exclusion processes can be produced among poor associated workers, expanding their autonomy.It should be noted that these organisations must be managed by the workers themselves (Grohmann;Salvagni, 2023), taking into account democratic, participatory and autonomous management.
Such premises can sustain a society with principles of equity, social justice, and emancipation (Junges;Campos, 2022).
In the case of the pickers, the individuals are re-qualified along with the material that they separate, pack, and sell; they go from potentially "disgusting", since they live among garbage, to a kind of "environmental agent" that transforms the waste into income and dignity.Act and learn, learn to act.
The phrase "we need to learn to... " is a constant in groups, which are seeking learning and reflected action The relationship with the municipal government of Canoas has always been tense, but the pickers struggle to obtain the necessary support from this same city administration.The collection of waste in the city's trucks is very important for them to receive enough material to be recycled.Cognitive justice will be put into practice every time, for instance, the pickers can take a decision in group and defend it in the municipal parliament.They ask for public hearings, which are held as part of the public inquiry process and provides interested parties with the opportunity to discuss interest issues in a public forum.When they are represented in municipal council assemblies, in some way, the abyssal lines are crossed.
A colonial and reductionist view of them would only see poor and stigmatized workers.A look from the perspective of the sociology of absences and emergencies sees the potential they have, as citizens and as beings who interact with their surroundings.Waste pickers have their own life and work strategies.
What they really need in order to improve their living conditions is the effective support of public policies and a change in the way their work is seen by society.
It is necessary, however, that the municipal authorities (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary Powers) support the initiatives of the pickers.The creation of recycling programs that include cooperatives is fundamental, like Câmbio Verde in Curitiba.The expansion of learning about their reality can help them to politically organize themselves for this.In addition to the gains in labor relations, there is also a possibility in the cooperatives of forwarding the demands of the city.Thus, cooperatives can be the solution adopted for waste management, so that waste pickers become protagonists of more sustainable development (Ribeiro et al, 2021;Gutberlet, 2021).Boaventura de Sousa Santos points to the political struggles of those 'from below' to overcome absences and make presences emerge.As the author says, "[…]for an ecology of knowledges, knowledgeas-intervention-in-reality is the measure of realism" (Santos, 2014, p. 231).This idea of 'knowledge as intervention in the world' can be the basis of emancipatory social practices to the urban waste pickers.
We know that the word "emancipation" should not be idealized or romanticized, in this context.
The conditions for social emancipation are limited.But if they become politically articulated, waste pickers are much more likely to dialogue with the municipal government, improving working conditions and legitimizing themselves as the base of the recycling production chain (Gutberlet, 2021;Gutberlet et al, 2023).Overcoming absence and invisibility is to be recognized as a relevant economic agent for the production chain of urban solid waste recycling.The place of enunciation of the ecology of knowledges is any place where any kind of knowledge aims to turn into a transformative experience (Santos, 2014).The main findings reinforce some premises, which we defend at the end of this article (Motta, 2023).
Basically, there are three.First, the associated waste pickers can produce valid knowledge and build the self-management of their cooperatives.Second, they still need to be supported by consistent public policies for the popular recycling sector.And third, it is necessary to change the negative representation of waste pickers, which still predominates in Brazilian culture, and legitimizes inequality.

CONCLUSION
The main objective of this study was to analyze the dimensions of knowledge and social practices that associated waste pickers produce, as well as their potential to change, for the better, their living conditions.Sociopoetics proved to be a powerful method to promote mutual understanding among members of the researcher-group, and this could be an important contribution to the field of intervention with these communities.(Santos;Cordeiro, 2020).
However, there are some limits to this research, which is based on a case study.For further research projects, it is possible to address the experiences of workers from other segments.Thus, analyzing knowledge based on other social movements, such as the Landless Rural Workers, for instance, could reveal other aspects of the phenomenon, or reinforce certain premises.Such a relational approach can support future studies of sociopoetics.It cannot be generalized, but the results can be transferred to inspire the analyses of other similar contexts in Latin America and abroad.If supported, these groups address social, economic and environmental targets, build resilience, and reduce vulnerabilities.(Gutberlet, 2021;Gutberlet et al, 2023).
The production of absences, taking up Boaventura de Sousa Santos' theory, in the case of urban waste pickers takes the form of social disqualification: they are considered as riffraff, and rabble.These are pejorative words whose semantics point to the dehumanization contained in the processes of exclusion.
People who would not even be entitled to their own rights as citizens.The pickers with whom we have gathered for this study refuse this stigma, striving to improve working and living conditions through group learning, aiming for better practices.As much as they experience countless difficulties and precariousness, they are moving toward a future in which they increasingly interfere in, in the sense of searching for more equal opportunities.
Finally, it was moving to see the previously socially disqualified subject with low self-esteem that ends up recycling itself, as he/she does daily with the garbage of daily life in the city.The trash becomes "recyclable material", it becomes "income and dignity"; and the picker himself or herself, becomes the one who performs this alchemy, therefore, an alchemist of his own social reality.This can be interpreted | Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 173 of knowledge anchored in the experiences of social movements in the global South.As for Maria Paula Meneses, a Mozambican sociologist, she theorizes about cognitive justice and the contrasts between different types of knowledge, in terms of the social actors who detain power within society.We believe that these authors provide us with an adequate theoretical framework to analyze our object of study.Let us now introduce the empirical context of the investigated field.
| Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 182 waste picker cooperatives.The group was well integrated and there was mutual support among members.
| Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 | Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 184 this point that the association acquires significant importance in the life of the pickers.The cooperative model enhances the search for citizenship and social recognition.As a member of the cooperative, each one is acknowledged as a worker in the surrounding community.They become known by a wider range of social agents, interacting with public managers, teachers, researchers, and university students, expanding their symbolic and representational repertoire.
| Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 185 present in the relations among them.The group seeks the lines of flight (Deleuze; Guattari, 1987), the overcoming; the emancipatory process created by each one of them, which in their understanding must involve welcoming and solidarity.
| Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 186 (construction of praxis in a Marxist language).Such findings are important to show the subjects' potential to change their living conditions.
| Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 187 | Novo Hamburgo | v. 21 | n. 1 | jan./jun.2024 188 as a form of emergency, to be unveiled through the sociology of emergencies, which we try to do in this research.Thus, we can contribute to the development of a non-extractive ethics in social research.If we really want our academic work to contribute to changing the exclusionary social metabolism, we must take responsibility for an inclusive ethics in research practices.