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Copyright of Ethnologie Française is the property of Presses Universitaires de France and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the 19th century, along with the expansion of the capitalist system, we see a growing attention to industrial waste as well as an increasing interest for the refuses of history. The recovery of these fragments, left aside from the official narration, represents the condemnation of a selection system which has often been an instrument of power and oppression. Thanks to the developing awareness of this mechanism, art takes on the task of exhuming and enhancing those waste materials through an archaeological perspective. The chiffonier, characterized by this archaeological vocation, is an emblematic figure of Paris during the Second Empire and a collector of the fragments of history. The main characters of Homer & Langley by Doctorow and Raymond Isidore e la sua cattedrale by Franzosini are contemporary chiffonniers who, through their works, create a monument to the objects of waste, while these biographical fictions rehabilitate the narration of these “wasted lives” dominated by mental alienation

Copyright of Other Modernities / Altre Modernita / Otras Modernidades / Autres Modernités is the property of Altre Modernita and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Mondes en Developpement is the property of De Boeck Universite and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the rag men of the Bordeaux region in France, and the social aspects of their work and place in society. Topics include rag men as a socially stigmatized group, social and legal comparisons and differences between rag men and beggars, and public attitudes toward rag men as agents of urban squalor.