Inclusive recycling movements: a green deep democracy from below

Abstract

This paper examines the multiple strategies articulated by grassroots recycler networks to bring about socioenvironmental change. The paper shows how these networks are an emblematic case of grassroots governmentality, whereby urban poor communities contribute to building more inclusive environmental regimes by developing technologies of power more typical of the powerful. These technologies include enumeration, with its resulting self-knowledge; the production of discourses and rationalities of social inclusion and environmental sustainability; and engagement in open and diverse alliances, at times with actors holding apparently antagonistic interests. The paper also reveals how recycling networks are a representative case of deep and green democracy. It is deep democracy, as grassroots networks strive to gain deep and true representativeness in their territories. It is green democracy, as it illustrates alternative pathways to environmental governance that is not limited to state and global organizations, but that also includes a range of control techniques emanating from the communities themselves.

Keywords: citizenship; enumeration; grassroots governmentality; grassroots networks; movement; waste pickers’.