A mí déjenme ser libre»: Tres ilusiones en torno al trabajo de mujeres recicladoras en Ecuador

This article assesses the labor experience of female recyclers in Ecuador, exploring their perceptions and illusions in terms of the notion of work. In doing so, we seek to understand how they negotiate their place in broader systems of inequality and discrimination. Based on anthropological studies of marginal work as well as a six month long multi-sited ethnographic research project, we identified a particular perspective on the meanings of autonomy and freedom: in circumstances of exclusion, in time management, and in the notion of respect, which must be negotiated daily in a context of social stigma. Ultimately, this article aims to contribute to contemporary debates in the anthropology of work. It does this by thinking critically and from a concrete and situated experience, how the notion of work can be understood and lived. It also looks to evidence several things, including a search for a vital structuring through recycling, fluidity between productive and reproductive tasks, and the development of creative strategies of resistance and an affirmation of one’s social agency.