DOING WITH: A WASTE MANAGEMENT EXPERIMENT WITH A POOR COMMUNITY IN BOLIVIA

Abstract

Faced with the major challenges that threaten us, such as the accumulation of waste, one way forward could be to learn to “work with” (Citton, 2021): to work with and from waste, and to work with and within poor communities in the Global South. Drawing on concepts from Simondon’s philosophy, we present an experiment in waste management in a Bolivian community. Neither social entrepreneurship nor community entrepreneurship, the approach initiated a movement that spread throughout the community. Rather than imposing a model, it is like a minor gesture that the community extends and propagates, towards a supplement of relational autonomy.