Abstract
In the following pages we consider the relationship between the experience of living on territories that were used as landfills and the definition of waste from that experience. How to convey what is defined as such in that territory? Analyzing human settlements on former landfills we think about the need of studying the role of body and emotion in reality’s construction. In this sense, we use the concept of abject, bearing in mind that the traditional definition of waste implies being the shadow, the discarded. This analysis is relevant considering Latin America’s history of symbolic violence, under silencing and subalternization logics resulting in postcolonial domination. We feel the political urgency in thinking about how this silencing process functions in dynamics of “acostumbramiento” (getting used to), as part of the social supportability mechanisms. We make reference both to the theoretical argument and the fieldwork taking place in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. This work is still in progress; hereby we present the reader thoughts under elaboration.