Ragpickers and Leftover Performances

Rag-Pickers as Benefactors and Beneficiaries of the Sustainable Development Goals: A Brief Literature Review

“…Italicisation has been used in Table 1, to identify the publications belonging to more than one group. Moll (2020), Hillenbrand (2019), Sainsbury (2019), Craig (2019), Berg (2015), Le Roy (2017), Bielecki (2009), Faure (1996), andFlorin (2015), go further back in time to France/Germany/England/Egypt; the first eight presenting the ragpicker as a 'muse' for the writer, poet and artist, personifying the 'waste as wealth' paradigm which the ragpickers have been silently upholding.…”

“…Table 1. Categorisation on the basis of temporality of data analysed (italicisation used as identifier of publications belonging to more than group) (2016( ), Florin (2015, Etcheverry et al (2014), Gothoskar (2014), Gigengack (2014), Ojha et al (2014), Kandasamy et al (2013), Kulshrestha (2011), Chandramohan et al (2010), Wachukwu et al (2010), Thapa et al (2009), da Silva et al (2006a), da Silva et al (2006b), Gupta and Boojh (2006), da Silva et al (2005), Ray et al (2004), Purohit et al (2001), Joshi, S (1998), Singh (1999), Sharma (1995) 5-20 Coledam et al (2022), Rajendiran et al (2022), Prihandoko et al (2021), Venkiteela (2020), , Aricat et al (2020), Hillenbrand (2019), Khatoon et al (2019), Saikia (2019), Joshi et al (2016), Florin (2015, Uplap et al (2014), Gigengack (2014), Kulshrestha (2011), Malik et al (2002 >20 Moll (2020), Venkiteela (2020), Hillenbrand (2019), Sainsbury (2019), Craig (2019), Le Roy (2017), Berg (2015), Florin (2015),…”

“…While Craig (2019) emphasizes the importance of foregrounding the contribution of ragpickers as a vital part of several cultures and heritages, readers will agree that they must be credited for extracting life out of detritus which symbolises doom (Berg 2015) and repurposing (valorising) what to many thoughtless urbanites belonging to the higher socioeconomic echelon, have lost their purpose (value) (le Roy 2017). A ragpicker, for le Roy (2017), is a 'collector and cataloguer' as opposed to a scavenger, and is in principle not very different from rich art-collectors. Hillenbrand (2019) concurs and labels the ragpicker's enterprise as the 'appropriate, aesthetic, alchemical stewardship of objects' in a culture which, as Moll (2020) observes, is grounded in the socioeconomic cult of disposability, prodigality and excessive consumption on the part of the wealthy and privileged.…”

“…However, it is not clear to this reviewer how that will positively impact the livelihoods of ragpickers, if more and more of them are not simultaneously being trained and readied for alternative occupations. Berg (2015) targets history-enthusiasts keen on understanding the 'untold stories within stories' related to the second world war, while Craig (2019) and Le Roy (2017) have an implicit message to all readers, to correct all historical misdeeds, the ones committed against rag-pickers included. While Hillenbrand (2019) appeals to the aesthetic sense inherent in almost all of us, to recognise the role played by ragpickers as something valuable, beautiful and vivifying, Faure (1996), Bielecki (2009) and Sainsbury (2017) herald the rag-picker as a silently-striving, stoic protagonist who does not seek any appreciation for what s/he is doing, and thereby deserves it all the more from us, instead of being looked down upon as 'sordid and dangerous'.…”

Doing Tolerance

“…Think of Walter Benjamin's flâneur and ragpicker as portrayed in his "Arcade Project" (1999/1940) wandering through the city not only opposing the efficient and clean bourgeois, but also representing a kind of condensed counter-hegominc position. During the European financial crisis which hit first Greece and later Spain, Italy, and Portugal, contradictions of capitalism became visible: The ragpicker collecting the leftovers of history (see also Le Roy 2017) and the flâneur loitering around, dreaming through the city again became important subjects of resistance. The Movimiento 15-M was born in Spain.…”