Michelle Rosaldo
Biographic Data
| ID | 144601 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle Rosaldo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Rosaldo |
| SIGNATURE | ROSALDO M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2269-5547 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 120 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Classification struggles of informal workers: How waste pickers became proletarianized in Brazil and Indigenized in Colombia
Why do movements of similarly situated workers arrive at different answers to fundamental questions like: Who are we? What do we want? How will we get it? And how do answers to these questions shape movement strategy and outcomes? This article explores this puzzle by comparing the Brazilian and Colombian waste picker movements—two of the world’s oldest and largest organizing efforts among informal recyclers. Despite shared origins, the movements …
Dilemas De Coprodução: Como os catadores de rua em São Paulo foram excluídos da reciclagem inclusiva
No serviço público, sob quais condições a colaboração entre trabalhadores informais e o Estado leva a sinergias socialmente benéficas e quando podem intensificar as desigualdades? Este artigo, baseado em 14 meses de pesquisa etnográfica, trata dessa questão por meio de um estudo de caso comparativo de duas tentativas de coproduzir serviços de reciclagem em São Paulo. A primeira, um esforço de organização de base nos anos 1980 e 1990, melhorou a r…
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Formalization: Waste Pickers' Struggles for Labor Rights in São Paulo and Bogotá
Many labor scholars and practitioners see the regulation of informal work as necessary to protect the world's most vulnerable workers from market predation. This article advances an alternative perspective: State regulation is a versatile tool that can be wielded either by workers or by elites, often toward contradictory ends. Accordingly, the key question for those seeking to promote decent work is not whether to formalize informal jobs, but rat…
The Antinomies of Successful Mobilization: Colombian Recyclers Manoeuvre between Dispossession and Exploitation
Long dismissed as too weak and fragmented to collectively organize, millions of informal workers have begun mobilizing for labour rights over the past 40 years. As informal workers gain a measure of power to reshape the structure and conditions of their work, but continue to face constraints due to their subordinated positions in the broader political economy, tensions may emerge between the imperatives of combatting exploitation and dispossessio…
Dilemmas of Co-production: How Street Waste Pickers Became Excluded from Inclusive Recycling in São Paulo
Under what conditions do collaborations between informal workers and the state in public service provision lead to socially beneficial synergies, and when might they intensify inequalities? This article, based on 14 months of ethnographic research, addresses this question through a comparative case study of two attempts to co-produce recycling services in São Paulo. The first, a grassroots organizing effort in the 1980s and 1990s, improved the in…
Problematizing the “informal sector”: 50 Years of Critique, Clarification, Qualification, and More Critique
Since its coining in 1971, the concept of the “informal sector” has been used to draw scholarly, political, and philanthropic attention to hundreds of millions of workers who lack basic labor protections. But as the term proliferated, so too did its detractors. Critics claim that the label of “informal” homogenizes the world's poor and distorts understandings of the sources of and solutions to their economic woes. What are the origins of the conc…
Living Theory: Principles and Practices for Teaching Social Theory Ethnographically
This article details the principles and practices animating an “ethnographic” method of teaching social theory. As opposed to the traditional “survey” approach that aims to introduce students to the historical breadth of social thought, the primary objective of teaching ethnographically is to cultivate students as participant observers who interpret, adjudicate between, and practice social theories in their everyday lives. Three pedagogical princ…
Revolution in the Garbage Dump: The Political and Economic Foundations of the Colombian Recycler Movement, 1986-2011
Flouting 150 years of reports on their political impotence, millions of informal workers have recently begun mobilizing for labor rights. What provoked this unexpected development? This article analyzes the Colombian informal recycler movement-a "least likely" case for successful mobilization due to the recyclers' extreme marginality and the Colombian state's violent repression of labor movements. The article argues that the rise of neoliberalism…
General and Theoretical: New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies. Anthony Giddens
Woman Culture and Society
I have nothing to hide: The language of Ilongot oratory
The Ilongots of the northern Philippines traditionally value a speech style, 'crooked language,' rich in art, wit, and indirection, in certain situations. Purun 'oratory', both as event and speech style, is one of these. A brideprice meeting is recounted and examined in detail. Unique features of oratory, in contrast to everyday verbal interaction, depend on its public character, as a scheduled event with large audience (rather than special setti…
I have nothing to hide: The language of Ilongot oratory
The Ilongots of the northern Philippines traditionally value a speech style, 'crooked language,' rich in art, wit, and indirection, in certain situations. Purun 'oratory', both as event and speech style, is one of these. A brideprice meeting is recounted and examined in detail. Unique features of oratory, in contrast to everyday verbal interaction, depend on its public character, as a scheduled event with large audience (rather than special setti…
Revolution in the Garbage Dump: The Political and Economic Foundations of the Colombian Recycler Movement, 1986-2011
Flouting 150 years of reports on their political impotence, millions of informal workers have recently begun mobilizing for labor rights. What provoked this unexpected development? This article analyzes the Colombian informal recycler movement-a "least likely" case for successful mobilization due to the recyclers' extreme marginality and the Colombian state's violent repression of labor movements. The article argues that the rise of neoliberalism…
Problematizing the “informal sector”: 50 Years of Critique, Clarification, Qualification, and More Critique
Since its coining in 1971, the concept of the “informal sector” has been used to draw scholarly, political, and philanthropic attention to hundreds of millions of workers who lack basic labor protections. But as the term proliferated, so too did its detractors. Critics claim that the label of “informal” homogenizes the world's poor and distorts understandings of the sources of and solutions to their economic woes. What are the origins of the conc…
Living Theory: Principles and Practices for Teaching Social Theory Ethnographically
This article details the principles and practices animating an “ethnographic” method of teaching social theory. As opposed to the traditional “survey” approach that aims to introduce students to the historical breadth of social thought, the primary objective of teaching ethnographically is to cultivate students as participant observers who interpret, adjudicate between, and practice social theories in their everyday lives. Three pedagogical princ…
The Antinomies of Successful Mobilization: Colombian Recyclers Manoeuvre between Dispossession and Exploitation
Long dismissed as too weak and fragmented to collectively organize, millions of informal workers have begun mobilizing for labour rights over the past 40 years. As informal workers gain a measure of power to reshape the structure and conditions of their work, but continue to face constraints due to their subordinated positions in the broader political economy, tensions may emerge between the imperatives of combatting exploitation and dispossessio…
Woman Culture and Society
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Formalization: Waste Pickers' Struggles for Labor Rights in São Paulo and Bogotá
Many labor scholars and practitioners see the regulation of informal work as necessary to protect the world's most vulnerable workers from market predation. This article advances an alternative perspective: State regulation is a versatile tool that can be wielded either by workers or by elites, often toward contradictory ends. Accordingly, the key question for those seeking to promote decent work is not whether to formalize informal jobs, but rat…
Dilemmas of Co-production: How Street Waste Pickers Became Excluded from Inclusive Recycling in São Paulo
Under what conditions do collaborations between informal workers and the state in public service provision lead to socially beneficial synergies, and when might they intensify inequalities? This article, based on 14 months of ethnographic research, addresses this question through a comparative case study of two attempts to co-produce recycling services in São Paulo. The first, a grassroots organizing effort in the 1980s and 1990s, improved the in…
Classification struggles of informal workers: How waste pickers became proletarianized in Brazil and Indigenized in Colombia
Why do movements of similarly situated workers arrive at different answers to fundamental questions like: Who are we? What do we want? How will we get it? And how do answers to these questions shape movement strategy and outcomes? This article explores this puzzle by comparing the Brazilian and Colombian waste picker movements—two of the world’s oldest and largest organizing efforts among informal recyclers. Despite shared origins, the movements …
General and Theoretical: New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies. Anthony Giddens
I have nothing to hide: The language of Ilongot oratory
The Ilongots of the northern Philippines traditionally value a speech style, 'crooked language,' rich in art, wit, and indirection, in certain situations. Purun 'oratory', both as event and speech style, is one of these. A brideprice meeting is recounted and examined in detail. Unique features of oratory, in contrast to everyday verbal interaction, depend on its public character, as a scheduled event with large audience (rather than special setti…
Woman Culture and Society
General and Theoretical: New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies. Anthony Giddens
Living Theory: Principles and Practices for Teaching Social Theory Ethnographically
This article details the principles and practices animating an “ethnographic” method of teaching social theory. As opposed to the traditional “survey” approach that aims to introduce students to the historical breadth of social thought, the primary objective of teaching ethnographically is to cultivate students as participant observers who interpret, adjudicate between, and practice social theories in their everyday lives. Three pedagogical princ…
Revolution in the Garbage Dump: The Political and Economic Foundations of the Colombian Recycler Movement, 1986-2011
Flouting 150 years of reports on their political impotence, millions of informal workers have recently begun mobilizing for labor rights. What provoked this unexpected development? This article analyzes the Colombian informal recycler movement-a "least likely" case for successful mobilization due to the recyclers' extreme marginality and the Colombian state's violent repression of labor movements. The article argues that the rise of neoliberalism…
Problematizing the “informal sector”: 50 Years of Critique, Clarification, Qualification, and More Critique
Since its coining in 1971, the concept of the “informal sector” has been used to draw scholarly, political, and philanthropic attention to hundreds of millions of workers who lack basic labor protections. But as the term proliferated, so too did its detractors. Critics claim that the label of “informal” homogenizes the world's poor and distorts understandings of the sources of and solutions to their economic woes. What are the origins of the conc…
The Antinomies of Successful Mobilization: Colombian Recyclers Manoeuvre between Dispossession and Exploitation
Long dismissed as too weak and fragmented to collectively organize, millions of informal workers have begun mobilizing for labour rights over the past 40 years. As informal workers gain a measure of power to reshape the structure and conditions of their work, but continue to face constraints due to their subordinated positions in the broader political economy, tensions may emerge between the imperatives of combatting exploitation and dispossessio…
Dilemmas of Co-production: How Street Waste Pickers Became Excluded from Inclusive Recycling in São Paulo
Under what conditions do collaborations between informal workers and the state in public service provision lead to socially beneficial synergies, and when might they intensify inequalities? This article, based on 14 months of ethnographic research, addresses this question through a comparative case study of two attempts to co-produce recycling services in São Paulo. The first, a grassroots organizing effort in the 1980s and 1990s, improved the in…
Dilemas De Coprodução: Como os catadores de rua em São Paulo foram excluídos da reciclagem inclusiva
No serviço público, sob quais condições a colaboração entre trabalhadores informais e o Estado leva a sinergias socialmente benéficas e quando podem intensificar as desigualdades? Este artigo, baseado em 14 meses de pesquisa etnográfica, trata dessa questão por meio de um estudo de caso comparativo de duas tentativas de coproduzir serviços de reciclagem em São Paulo. A primeira, um esforço de organização de base nos anos 1980 e 1990, melhorou a r…
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Formalization: Waste Pickers' Struggles for Labor Rights in São Paulo and Bogotá
Many labor scholars and practitioners see the regulation of informal work as necessary to protect the world's most vulnerable workers from market predation. This article advances an alternative perspective: State regulation is a versatile tool that can be wielded either by workers or by elites, often toward contradictory ends. Accordingly, the key question for those seeking to promote decent work is not whether to formalize informal jobs, but rat…
Classification struggles of informal workers: How waste pickers became proletarianized in Brazil and Indigenized in Colombia
Why do movements of similarly situated workers arrive at different answers to fundamental questions like: Who are we? What do we want? How will we get it? And how do answers to these questions shape movement strategy and outcomes? This article explores this puzzle by comparing the Brazilian and Colombian waste picker movements—two of the world’s oldest and largest organizing efforts among informal recyclers. Despite shared origins, the movements …
Sociology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Economic growth (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Informal sector (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Ethnography (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Social science (3 works)