Uneven Urban Spaces: Accessing Trash in Managua, Nicaragua

Informal waste recovery is a vital occupation for urban dwellers without formal economic opportunities. Despite the prevalence of informal waste pickers in urban areas, little is known about tension and conflict associated with pickers’ ability to access trash at municipal waste sites. In this article, ethnographic field data are analyzed to explore themes of tension and conflict as experienced by informal waste pickers at the Managua, Nicaragua, municipal waste site. Special attention is paid to two recent events in the waste site: the announcement of a large-scale development project that will radically change municipal solid waste management practices at the site and a month-long strike carried out by waste pickers. Importantly, findings suggest that municipal waste sites should be situated in terms of historical and present-day processes, that waste must be conceptualized as a finite resource to be fought for, and that waste pickers experience tension and conflict on account of internal and external spatially-defined factors.