The Rag Pickers of Cairo: The Dregs of the City or “Garbage Businessmen”?

Cairo’s rag pickers inhabit “garbage zones” located in the city’s most remote outer regions, but they are further marginalized because of their practice of raising swine in a predominately Muslim country. The present article describes the effects of two attempts to reform how the city’s waste stream...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnologie française 2017, Vol.153 (3)
Main Author: Florin, Bénédicte
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Geography
Humanities and Social Sciences
Social Anthropology and ethnology
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Cairo’s rag pickers inhabit “garbage zones” located in the city’s most remote outer regions, but they are further marginalized because of their practice of raising swine in a predominately Muslim country. The present article describes the effects of two attempts to reform how the city’s waste stream is managed on these important that neglected these historically stigmatized urban residents. The 2002 reform outsourced waste collection to large European firms, effectively excluding the rag pickers’ from their professional raw material. The second reform, in 2010, allowed them to continue to household waste collection on the condition that they signed sub-contracting agreements with private waste management firms. This study documents the rag pickers’ battle against these imported waste management systems and their struggle to gain formal recognition as recyclers and entrepreneurs rather than mere urban garbage collectors.
ISSN:0046-2616
2101-0064