Cooperative recycling in São Paulo, Brazil: towards an emotional consideration of empowerment

Abstract

This study, set in the context of a group of recycling cooperatives in the greater metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil, is about the relationship between emotional geographies and notions of empowerment. Paying attention to the ways that emotional expressions of empowerment deconstruct and subvert oppressive relations of power, while simultaneously reproducing and obscuring these same oppressive hegemons, we ask: what emotions are collectively felt by those who ascribe to the movement? And more importantly, what do these collective emotions do? How do emotions align individuals with particular collective values, and how do these emotions work in relation to systems of domination? Due to the cooperatives' location within Brazilian hegemonic systems of social domination, we argue that viewing empowerment as an emotion 'I feel empowered' rather than something one is or one achieves 'I am empowered' offers the space to consider the necessarily paradoxical nature of empowerment.

Infrastructures and society: from a literature review to a conceptual framework

“…The same happens with air and water pollutants. This impact is potentially greater on vulnerable groups or communities such as children, women, elderly people, poor people or minorities (Makri and Stilianakis 2008, Candela et al 2013, Nunn and Gutberlet 2013, Giovannini et al 2014and Levy and Patz 2015.…”

Transforming Socio-Natures in Turkey

“…A third group of scholarship discusses informality and the question of integrating it into formal systems. Bottom-up strategies such as self-organization and cooperative building (Gutberlet, 2008(Gutberlet, , 2012Lawhon et al, 2018;Medina, 2007Medina, , 2011Nunn and Gutberlet, 2013), social entrepreneurship (Nzeadibe, 2013; see also Oteng-Ababio, 2018 for a consideration of gender roles) appear as recognized strategies for bridging informal and formal activities. Discussions of the public policy relevance of integration into formal systems often refer to the weakness of the extant institutional and technological systems and the need for appropriate system designs and techno-managerial solutions (see Alemu, 2017;Simatele et al, 2017;Wilson et al, 2006).…”

Urban Recycling Cooperatives

“…Despite the recognition of structural causes for being excluded and systemic sources of oppression that exist in the lives of the recyclers, female cooperative members generally agree that working in a cooperative offers them more personal dignity than other low-income jobs that are typically performed by women. Women have expressed a preference for working in the cooperative over paid domestic labour because of the sense of autonomy they gain with their work in the cooperative (Nunn and Gutberlet, 2013).…”

“…A fascinating and notable feature of the group of cooperatives involved in the PSWM programme is the female leadership in these cooperatives. Currently the majority of leadership positions in cooperatives in Brazil are filled by women and even within the Brazilian recyclers' movement, which until recently had an exclusively male leadership, women are taking up more prominent positions (Nunn and Gutberlet, 2013). The phenomenal representation of women leaders reflects a unique culture that exists among cooperative recyclers and demonstrates how emotions -specifically in this case confidence, composure, and courage -in relation to specific gendered codes of conduct can define how a space can be either conducive or non-conducive to social change.…”