Análisis de la pobreza multidimensional con enfoque de género en recicladores de base del cantón Cuenca

Abstract

Current consumption and production patterns are unsustainable, and waste pickers in Latin America are key stakeholders, since they favor increasing recycling rates in a region with precarious waste management systems. Therefore, this research analyzes poverty of time and power in waste pickers based on the theory of multidimensional poverty. Recycling at the foot of the sidewalk is part of the informal sector and is carried out mainly (80%) by women in Cuenca canton. This feminized activity is traversed by structural violence, in terms of poverty and patriarchy. A qualitative study of poverty was carried out, based on semi-structured interviews with nine organized and independent women waste pickers during the first half of 2020. The results show the perceptions and feelings of women regarding the use of time and violence. The space in which recycling is carried out, whether on the streets, is violent, due to the struggle of sectors to guarantee access to the material, and at home, in which the material is classified, due to direct violence of which they are victims, their main aggressors are their partners. The poverty of time that arises from the sexual division of labor is reflected in their exclusion from the formal labor market, compared to recycling as an opportunity to care and produce. Any local policy must consider that informal recycling in the canton is a feminized activity and strategies require understanding poverty from a gender perspective.