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Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and counter-disciplinarity are the hallmark of cultural studies and qualitative research, as scholars over the past three decades have discussed through extensive self-reflexive inquiry into their own unstable and ever-shifting methods (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Dicks et al., 2006: 78; Grossberg, 2010). Building on the interdisciplinary thought of Jacques Rancière and Caroline Levine on the one hand and traditions of participatory action research and activist anthropology on the other, we bring the methods conversation forward by shifting the focus from disciplines to forms and by making a case for aesthetic practice as qualitative research process. In this paper, the question of methods is approached through the action-based Cartonera Publishing Project with editoriales cartoneras in Latin America – community publishers who make low-cost books out of materials recovered from the street in the attempt to democratise and decolonise literary/artistic production – and specifically through our process-oriented, collaborative work with four cartonera publishers in Brazil and Mexico. Guided by the multiple forms of cartonera knowledge production, which are rooted not in academic research but rather in aesthetic practice and community relations, we offer an innovative ‘trans-formal’ methodological framework, which opens up new pathways for practitioners and researchers to work, think and act across social, cultural and aesthetic forms.

Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and counter-disciplinarity are the hallmark of cultural studies and qualitative research, as scholars over the past three decades have discussed through extensive self-reflexive inquiry into their own unstable and ever-shifting methods (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Dicks et al., 2006: 78; Grossberg, 2010). Building on the interdisciplinary thought of Jacques Rancière and Caroline Levine on the one hand and traditions of participatory action research and activist anthropology on the other, we bring the methods conversation forward by shifting the focus from disciplines to forms and by making a case for aesthetic practice as qualitative research process. In this paper, the question of methods is approached through the action-based Cartonera Publishing Project with editoriales cartoneras in Latin America – community publishers who make low-cost books out of materials recovered from the street in the attempt to democratise and decolonise literary/artistic production – and specifically through our process-oriented, collaborative work with four cartonera publishers in Brazil and Mexico. Guided by the multiple forms of cartonera knowledge production, which are rooted not in academic research but rather in aesthetic practice and community relations, we offer an innovative ‘trans-formal’ methodological framework, which opens up new pathways for practitioners and researchers to work, think and act across social, cultural and aesthetic forms.

The introduction to this special issue starts with a brief thematisation of the key theoretical interventions in the anthropology of waste in order to situate our own contribution. We follow this by discussing, and adding to the recent anthropology and sociology of ignorance and not knowing, before turning to the intersections between waste and ignorance, thinking through how we and other scholars have theorised ways of deflecting attention away from wastes, whether they are lands, material or human bodies. We broadly categorise these technologies of deflection and unknowing into 'spatial', 'temporal', 'epistemological', 'calculative' and 'rhetorical'. Specific techniques within these categories serve to eclipse other ways of knowing (i.e. the sensory, affective aspects of waste (e)valuation) and often depoliticise decisions concerning wastes, places, materials, people and their livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a 'register of recovery' that emerged in post-crisis and post-neoliberal Argentina as a way of imagining and framing an increasingly disparate collection of persons, things, and ideas, from young workers, to green space, to hose pipes. Drawing on ethnography conducted at the NuevaMente recycling cooperative in Morón, Greater Buenos Aires, the article attends to the material implications stemming from the adoption of the rather hopeful concept of recovery, and the counter-models proposed by young workers, who view the workplace as a space not of cathartic recovery, but of temporary care and respite from the complications of family life. By emphasising the recovery of workers into the formal economy, their rich labour histories are deliberately unknown, while a focus on the recoverability of things ignores not only their lack of value, but also their potential hazardousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Roundtable Discussion with Filmmakers and Researchers at University College London, England on Art and the Toxic Politics of Waste. Topics discussed include "Estamira" was filmed in what was then one of the largest landfills in the world, the infamous Jardim Gramacho; Karl Marx used the term "commodity-fetish" to refer to those frequently useless manufactured objects and gadgets and film "La multitud" which is film that could be a photograph album.

Cardboard publishers (editoriales cartoneras) are small, independent publishers linked by the recovered cardboard that covers their books, a commitment to the promotion of local authors, and a drive to make literature accessible. This cultural movement, whose actors often form part of broader social movements, has spread across Latin America and beyond, with other 250 active collectives. Drawing on ethnography conducted with some of Mexico's thirty cartoneras, and literary analysis of their texts, this paper contributes to debates on violence and public space in the context of the brutal Mexican "war on drugs". Dialoguing with a body of scholarship spanning from Setha Low's pioneering urban anthropology to Jacques Rancière's art theory, we argue that cartoneras might be considered "public‐ers", in that their book‐making labor involves the production not just of books, but of new social relations, communities, and publics. By analyzing aesthetic materials in relation to the social contexts in which they are embedded, we demonstrate that decisions to denounce violence and perform its alternatives on the written page, and in the public plaza, are inseparable and intertwined cultural forms of action that create affective encounters, contact zones, and spaces of dissensus in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartonera publishing emerged in post-crisis Buenos Aires with the birth of Eloísa cartonera (2003), whose founders proposed a radically new model of making books out of recycled cardboard, purchased from, and made with, cartoneros (waste-pickers). Since then, this model has been adapted across Latin America by an ever-growing number of collectives (currently around 250). In this article we ask: What relations and/or networks have enabled this model of underground cultural production to grow on such a scale? What modalities of resistance do they enable? Our contention is that Deleuze and Guattari's theory of rhizomes helps in understanding the ways in which cartoneras work, network and spread. Examining texts and practices across Argentina, Mexico and Brazil through literary analysis and ethnography, we make a case for the political significance of cartonera networks and, more broadly, the possibilities afforded by rhizomatic formations for emerging modes of micro-political action and transnational cultural activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on participatory research, this article explores the state formalisation of Uruguayan clasificadores (waste‐pickers). It goes beyond the informal/formal binary, instead proposing the concepts of 'para‐formality' to describe economic activity that exists in parallel to regulated and taxed spheres, and 'quasi‐formality' to describe processes of formalisation that are supported by underlying informal practices. When unregulated, clasificadores enjoyed parallel services in health, finance and social security, implying that benefits of 'formalisation' must be explored ethnographically rather than assumed. The persistence of 'quasi‐formal' activity within formalised recycling plants complicates simple narratives of informal to formal transitions and suggests that the concept can be useful for the study of labour policies in Latin America and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]