ABSTRACT
In this chapter the solidary economy (SE) is critically introduced. Two other conceptual and practical fields are found relevant to the SE: the informal economy and the work lives of subaltern women. Ethnographic evidence is used from women’s work in the waste economy of a South Indian town to answer questions about solidary organisation. (1) In the overlap between the solidary and the informal economy, are distinctive forms of empowerment for women generated which challenge both the logic and modes of expansion of capitalism and the movement towards Polanyi’s destructive market society? The answer is negative. (2) How is the SE institutionally regulated? The informal and SSE overlap through ascribed collectivities. (3) To what extent is the informal economy a refuge which operates with a logic different from that of capitalist accumulation? The informal waste economy develops as part of the local capitalist economy. (4) How are property ownership and the labour process gendered? Waste work appears feminised in disadvantageous ways, while property in waste is male gendered. (5) What is the gendered significance of collective, self-managed activity in the ‘everyday praxis’ of caste and ethnicity? Such activity seeks empowerment but in general social terms rather than in the immediate needs of waste work.
