Recollecting waste, governing the city

Session "Waste and Value" - Congress of the Association of American Geographers, April, 13th-18th,2010, Marriott Hotel, Washington D.C. (United States) Session "Waste anf value" - Congress of the Association of American Geographers organisé par l'Association des Géographes Américains du 13 au 18 avril 2010, Marriott Hotel, Washington D.C. (Etats-Unis)Massive scavenging in Buenos Aires is nearly ten years old and began with the 2001 economic crisis. This chronological deepness is an opportunity for analyzing the territorial and institutional integration of those new marginal actors in the city. We aim at showing that, as in other Latin American cities where the movement is older, the scavengers cooperatives participate to metropolitan spaces production by providing a local, flexible and qualitative service. However, their integration into an urban governance still challenges the traditional cleavages between territories, institutional competences and professional acknowledgement. This question has to be replaced in the context of a debate on the changes urban services supplying have been going through, especially in developing cities