Volcano: Between Structural Vulnerabilities and Collective Defence of Honor in Communities Surrounding an Open Dumpsite

Abstract

This study analyzes the dynamics in which structural vulnerabilities are shaped and expressed in the day-to-day lives of people making a living from a garbage dump in Argentina. It is a mixed methods case study, qualitative driven with a collaborative cycle (2016-2021). The study is embedded in medical anthropology, social epidemiology and Latin America Social Medicine, with the focus on the ways people respond to inequalities locally. The findings contribute to the field of health disparities in three directions: 1) the description of patterns of segregation in South America peripheries, shedding light on cumulative disadvantages and multiple exposures; 2) the experience of living enmeshed in places with strong stigmas, revising the ways this source of discrimination become social suffering; and 3) the detection of the impact of collective action and social capital in providing material and symbolic resources for restoring dignity and honour that challenge depreciated status.

Keywords: health disparities; making a living in garbage dumpsites; qualitative-driven mixed-methods; social inequalities; urban peripheries.