Desfetichizar para producir valor, refetichizar para producir el colectivo: cultura material en una cooperativa de "cartoneros" del gran Buenos Aires

this article presents results of research conducted in a cooperative of "pickers" of the buenos aires metropolitan area dedicated to recycling of waste, focusing on the analysis of the materiality of their practice. ethnographic analysis of the paths of objects discarded as "rubbish" and its subsequent appropriation, my aim is to demonstrate the ways in which they are raised again in social life, charging new senses, holding and/or producing new social linkages. the movement of this objects discarded in transit results in a complex social process that not only (re)creates these things but also people who come into relationship with and through them. this article argues that waste was material and symbolically dense objects that far from representing the final stage of production/consumption processes, play an important role in shaping interpersonal ties that bind those involved in transfers.