Building citizenship in contexts of informal employment: brickmakers and garbage classifiers in the State of Salto, Uruguay

Abstract

The discussion presented in this article makes part of the current redefinition of the debate on the construction of citizenship in contexts of vulnerability and informal employment, with the emergence of new actors and new ways of asserting rights, thus providing local governments and direct beneficiaries with a significant role in the process of policy making. Therefore, this article presents and analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of citizenship construction from the perspective of a decentralized socialpolicy aimed at strengthening the factors that promote social cohesion, especially those related to working conditions of garbage classifiers and brickmakers of Salto, Uruguay. Among the most important findings of thisstudy is the importance of their participation in building their workplace, thus revealing, on the one hand, “struggle” and conflict as the guiding principles of citizen participation and, on the other hand, the limitations ofshort-term policies when promoting citizenship attainment as an integrating factor.