Ecologies of scavenging: waste, gathering and scavenging in the centre of São Paulo

• Grant number: 25/03639-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: August 10, 2025
• End date: February 09, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Guilherme Moura Fagundes
• Grantee: Daniel Laerte Segetti Luchini
• Supervisor: Ludovic Coupaye
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University College London (UCL), England
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/10866-0 - Ecologies of scavenging: waste, gathering and scavenging in downtown São Paulo, BP.MS

Abstract

This international internship project is part of the ongoing master's research Ecologies of scavenging: waste, gathering and scavenging in the centre of São Paulo, involving a period of six months as a visiting research student (2o academic term of 2025) at the Center for the Anthropology of Technics and Technodiversity (CATT) at University College of London under the advisory of Professor Dr. Ludovic Coupaye. Coupaye's research investigates techniques and material activities, rethinking Leroi-Gourhan's chaîne opératoire as a methodology to document the ontological diversity of processes of making and the relational nature of material activities. This research intends to undertake an ethnographic study with homeless collectors of recyclable materials within the central area of the city of São Paulo. The focus is on the technical diversity of the gathering or salvaging activities, which can be found in the forms of interaction with urban waste emphasizing the collectors' modes of action and territorialities, seeking to map their itinerancy, their gestures, and collect and exchange circuits of recyclable materials. Since this research focuses on technical and material activities, Leroi-Gourhan's notion of chaîne opératoire is a key methodological tool for qualifying the operations involved in scavenging. Therefore, the international internship at CATT is relevant to the research. (AU)