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Gutberlet, Jutta, et al.
(författare)
Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements
2016
Ingår i: Environment & Urbanization. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-2478 .- 1746-0301. ; 28:1
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
This paper contributes to the understanding of processes by which small-scale entrepreneurs who provide household waste collection in informal settlements succeed in formalized co-production of such services. The paper draws on the social and solidarity economy and social and environmental entrepreneurship theoretical frameworks, which offer complementary understandings of diverse strategies to tackle everyday challenges. Two questions are addressed: How do informal waste collection initiatives get established, succeed and grow? What are the implications of this transition for the entrepreneurs themselves, the communities, the environmental governance system and the scholarship? A case study is presented, based on three waste picker entrepreneurs in Kisumu, Kenya, who have consolidated and expanded their operations in informal settlements but also extended social and environmental activities into formal settlements. The paper demonstrates how initiatives, born as community-based organizations, become successful social micro-enterprises, driven by a desire to address socioenvironmental challenges in their neighbourhoods.
3.
Kain, Jaan-Henrik, 1960, et al.
(författare)
Characteristics, challenges and innovations of waste picker organizations: A comparative perspective between Latin American and East African countries
2022
Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:7
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
Waste picker organisations (WPOs) around the globe collect, transport and process waste to earn their living but represent a widely excluded, marginalised and impoverished segment of society. WPOs are highly innovative, created by grassroots out of “nothing” to deliver economic, social and environmental sustainability. Still, we do not know how such innovations are developed, and how they are disseminated and adopted by other groups. This article examines characteristics, challenges and innovations of WPOs across five countries in Latin America and East Africa. It is based on quantitative and qualitative data regarding modes of organisation and management, gender, received support, business orientations, environmental and social contributions, and innovations developed in response to multiple challenges. The paper provides a comprehensive understanding of WPOs’ activities and their grassroots innovations in the Global South. The study shows how WPOs contribute significantly to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the societies they serve as well as the wider urban societies. To start and maintain WPOs in informal settlements with a lack of infrastructure, institutional frameworks, and public and private investors is a difficult quest. WPOs take many different organisational forms depending on the complexity of local realities, ranging from advanced collective organization as cooperatives to small self-help groups and microentrepreneurs. Self-organisation into regional and national networks provides economic opportunities, autonomy and stability as well as political influence. Yet, institutional support is fundamental and the lack thereof threatens their existence. Sustaining WPOs as important providers of socio-environmental benefits through governmental and non-governmental actions is a worthwhile undertaking that builds sustainability.
4.
Zapata Campos, María José, 1972, et al.
(författare)
Grassroots innovations in 'extreme' urban environments. The inclusive recycling movement
2023
Ingår i: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. - : SAGE Publications. - 2399-6544 .- 2399-6552. ; 41:2
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
Waste pickers all over the world work innovatively to reduce the environmental footprint of cities as they struggle to meet their critical livelihood obligations. Informed by the case of waste picker organizations (WPOs) this article examines how grassroots initiatives and extreme-niche innovations are created and sustained by mobilizing resources, rationales and relations. The study is informed by a cross-national survey and in-depth interviews with WPOs in Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Kenya and Tanzania, and builds upon theories of grassroots innovation movements. The findings show how operating in contexts of extreme scarcity, these grassroots organisations tap into local resources, e.g. tacit knowledge, economies of affection and other socially embedded institutional resources. Blending material and environmental rationales, contributes to expanding their audiences and to gaining further support. In such deprived urban contexts, radical and cumulative crises and events hindering residents’ livelihoods can paradoxically also spark ingenuity out of necessity, and the transformation of these settings into extreme niches of innovation. Finally, the mobilization of relations through the formation of networks linking WPOs with supportive intermediaries and global circuits of solidarity becomes another fundamental resilience strategy by which WPOs can navigate contested environments and insert their extreme-niche innovations in governmental structures. By simultaneously adopting a broad repertoire of strategies of insertion, contention, and mobilization WPO and their innovations thrive in highly constrained environments. We conclude with reflecting on how ‘extreme’ niches of innovation − at the cracks of the formal city, economy and waste systems − can unleash the creative power of stigmatized, illiterate and neglected grassroots to experiment with new solutions in resource-poor environments.
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Gutberlet, Jutta, et al.
(författare)
Waste Pickers and Their Practices of Insurgency and Environmental Stewardship
2021
Ingår i: Journal of Environment and Development. - : SAGE Publications. - 1070-4965. ; 30:4, s. 369-394
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
Informed by different grassroots learning and educational practices engaged in waste management, and drawing from the concepts of insurgent citizenship and environ- mental stewardship, we examine the role of waste picker organizations and movements in creating new pathways towards more sustainable environmental waste governance. Two case studies (Argentina and Brazil) demonstrate how waste pickers inform and educate the general public and raise the awareness of socio-environmental questions related to waste management. Different educational practices are used as strategies to confront citizens with their waste: to see waste as a consumption problem, resource, and income source. Our paper draws on grassroots learning (social movement learning and insurgent learning) and education (stewardship) aimed at the transformation of waste practices. We argue that waste pickers play an important role in knowledge production promoting recycling, in landfilling less and recovering more resources. We conclude that waste pickers act as insurgent citizens and also are environmental stewards.
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