Paper short abstract:

In a national context of circular economy and inclusive recycling policies, I analyse the unfolding power relations among the actors that engage in a rapidly changing recycling economy in the city of Cartagena, Colombia.

Paper long abstract:

In 2018, the Colombian government implemented a national circular economy strategy, proclaiming itself the first in Latin America. Subsequently, six regional agreements have been signed, notably in the city of Cartagena, placing the recycling of waste materials at the forefront, together with inclusive recycling which impels the formalisation of recyclers. Based on an ethnographic research with recyclers in Cartagena, I aim to analyse the power relations at play among the actors engaged in a rapidly changing recycling economy. First, I look at how only a small proportion of the waste workers are engaging in the formalisation process to show how the recycling economy in the city becomes inclusionary or exclusionary. Hence, hidden by a discourse on the inclusion of a vulnerable population, further exclusions are legitimised. Second, I look at who are the actors benefiting from the formalisation process and I shed light on the role played by powerful corrupt entrepreneurs. By conceiving waste as a politicized materiality, I look at both the actors being made invisible and the invisible actors acting in the shadow of waste. In tracing the process, I seek to underline the complex relational logics underpinning the city's recycling economy. Moreover, I emphasis the necessity to look at the stakeholders in the shadow of waste politics, not as an exceptionality, but rather as constitutive of the power relations unfolding around waste. By delving into recyclers' formalisation process in Cartagena, the paper raises probing questions for our understanding of the virtuous circularity celebrated in circular economies.