Challenges in ‘Community Organisation’ …
177
by such a narrow conceptualisation of the programme. The lack of such conceptualisation results in ignoring the possibility of waste picking as a livelihood mode that
can be a vehicle for ‘community development’ of this informal livelihood group.
This paper tries to identify the challenges and fissures in this simplistic technomanagerial conceptualisation of the waste pickers as individuals who could be registered and readily organised into groups to integrate into current practices of municipal
solid waste management.
2 Methodology
This paper is a reflection paper based on empirical studies
1 carried out at CEPT
University taking scrap pickers and recyclers as cases to understand their access to
spaces in the city of Ahmedabad. Both the studies were exploratory and attempted
to identify and understand the typologies of scrap pickers and recyclers in the city
of Ahmedabad. In these empirical studies, four modes of waste/scrap collection and
many sub-categories of scrap pickers were identified. These four modes of scrap collection are: (1) door-to-door waste collection; (2) scrap collection from roadsides; (3)
scrap collection for waste dumps or landfill sites; (4) Itinerant scrap collector/recycler
(raddiwallah/pithawallah).
These studies includes reconnaissance visits, group interviews and key-person
semi-structured interviews (2–3 sessions of two hours each) with all the modes of
scrap pickers and recycler households over a period of 6 months in 2016–2017. A
mix of group interviews and individual interviews were undertaken with different
members of the household involved in the waste picking activity or those supporting the said activity. Interviews with other relevant stakeholders like pithawallahs,
neighbours, other community representatives, CBO representatives and extended
family were used to triangulate collected information. The other study was based
on identifying all the existing pithawallahs in three sample wards (walled city, core
and periphery) of the city and their questionnaire survey followed by semi-structured
interviews of select key-persons. Thus, both these empirical studies tried to understand the different functional aspects that made it possible for the scrap pickers to
access spaces and survive in the city. One of these studies used reconnaissance.
1 The reflection paper is a by-product of two empirical studies on informal waste picking undertaken
in the city of Ahmedabad. The first was a case study of scrap pickers and their access to livelihood
and residential spaces in the city of Ahmedabad undertaken by Centre for Urban Equity at CEPT
University, funded by the European Union under an Erasmus Plus project known as BInUCom
(Building Inclusive Communities). The other was a Directed Research project to explore the ‘Space
usage and Functional consideration of Pithawallahs’ in Ahmedabad undertaken by the Author and
his student (Palak Panchal) funded by CEPT University.
177
by such a narrow conceptualisation of the programme. The lack of such conceptualisation results in ignoring the possibility of waste picking as a livelihood mode that
can be a vehicle for ‘community development’ of this informal livelihood group.
This paper tries to identify the challenges and fissures in this simplistic technomanagerial conceptualisation of the waste pickers as individuals who could be registered and readily organised into groups to integrate into current practices of municipal
solid waste management.
2 Methodology
This paper is a reflection paper based on empirical studies
1 carried out at CEPT
University taking scrap pickers and recyclers as cases to understand their access to
spaces in the city of Ahmedabad. Both the studies were exploratory and attempted
to identify and understand the typologies of scrap pickers and recyclers in the city
of Ahmedabad. In these empirical studies, four modes of waste/scrap collection and
many sub-categories of scrap pickers were identified. These four modes of scrap collection are: (1) door-to-door waste collection; (2) scrap collection from roadsides; (3)
scrap collection for waste dumps or landfill sites; (4) Itinerant scrap collector/recycler
(raddiwallah/pithawallah).
These studies includes reconnaissance visits, group interviews and key-person
semi-structured interviews (2–3 sessions of two hours each) with all the modes of
scrap pickers and recycler households over a period of 6 months in 2016–2017. A
mix of group interviews and individual interviews were undertaken with different
members of the household involved in the waste picking activity or those supporting the said activity. Interviews with other relevant stakeholders like pithawallahs,
neighbours, other community representatives, CBO representatives and extended
family were used to triangulate collected information. The other study was based
on identifying all the existing pithawallahs in three sample wards (walled city, core
and periphery) of the city and their questionnaire survey followed by semi-structured
interviews of select key-persons. Thus, both these empirical studies tried to understand the different functional aspects that made it possible for the scrap pickers to
access spaces and survive in the city. One of these studies used reconnaissance.
1 The reflection paper is a by-product of two empirical studies on informal waste picking undertaken
in the city of Ahmedabad. The first was a case study of scrap pickers and their access to livelihood
and residential spaces in the city of Ahmedabad undertaken by Centre for Urban Equity at CEPT
University, funded by the European Union under an Erasmus Plus project known as BInUCom
(Building Inclusive Communities). The other was a Directed Research project to explore the ‘Space
usage and Functional consideration of Pithawallahs’ in Ahmedabad undertaken by the Author and
his student (Palak Panchal) funded by CEPT University.