cartoneros: urban salvagers
I recently saw a great documentary called Cartoneros, a short version of which is below. They used scavenger for cartonero, but I think salvager has much more dignity to it. Just saw Bryan on subtopia use the term urban salvager, and like that specificity. In Vancouver the term is binner, but that seems very Vancouver specific - other English speakers don't seem to get it. There's actually also a movie about the Vancity binners, called Traplines in Vancouver, made by a French Geographer. The Vancouver binners association has one of my favorite organization names: United We Can. The other term is dumpster diver - which some folks use with great pride, but I don't think is as widely well regarded as salvager.
(ojo que en español Colombiano es reciclador, y, como dice Raul en los comentarios, en Mexicano pepenador, que viene del nahuatl)
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social justice movement terminology for interpreters and translators - because more bilingual movements are stronger movements!
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COMMENTS: some great discussions of terms in the comments - check them out and please add to them!
CONTACT: feel free to email me at Sara (dot) Koopman (at) gmail (dot) com
COMMENTS: some great discussions of terms in the comments - check them out and please add to them!
CONTACT: feel free to email me at Sara (dot) Koopman (at) gmail (dot) com
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8 comments:
But scavenger's more accurate than salvager... and surely has no more or less "dignity" than cartoneros.
In the US, they'd be "dumpster divers," probably, no? But of cousre cartoneros is much more specific, because it refers specifically to the material scavenged. So rather than "urban" (which doesn't really distinguish cartoneros from other urban scavengers), why not "cardboard scavengers."
If you need to translate the word at all, that is.
Oh, and in case that comment sounded too critical... let me say that my usual silence should be read as wholehearted agreement with and often delighted surprise in your other translations!
hmm ... but cartoneros collect far far more than just cardboard ...
In Mexico there's another word for it that is escaping my memory. YA ME ACORDE.... Pepenadores. That's what binners and urban salvagers means in Spanish from Mexico (a Mexican would never understand cartonero as pepenador. The word cartonero means someone who either collects only cardboard OR someone who actually devotes himself to producing cardboard). In Mexico, if you want to say binner or scavenger or salvager, you say pepenador.
I've just discovered your blogs: they are inspirationally fab! Thank you thank you. I'm a year late to this discussion but just for the record... I'm translating something about cartoneros from (informal) Argentine Spanish into British English and though I love dumpster diver, I'm worried that Brits wouldn't get it (dumpster=skip in BrE). I found a host of other intriguing terms on Wiki:
"urban foraging, binning, alley surfing, aggressive recycling, Curbing, D-mart, Dumpstering, garbaging, garbage picking, garbage gleaning, dumpster-raiding, dumpstering, dump-weaseling, tatting, skally-wagging, skipping, or trashing."
Also... skipsters? skip-surfers?
But my problem with so many of these is that it sounds somehow more frivolous than 'cartonero'.
So the debate continues...
I asked a friend in the UK and this was her input:
So, in british english there's no noun. Among people who do it, it's called 'skipping' as in "I'm going skipping", but I think this would not be understood by most of the population, and there isn't any term that would be.
I actually wonder if 'dumpster diver' might be the most understood term. Depends on the audience. It's definitely an americanism. I'd never hear a Brit say it. but then, there are plenty of americanisms in our language. Plus if it's referring to something Argentinian, maybe an americanism is more forgiveable.
Otherwise, for it to be most widely understood, it needs to be in inelegant longhand, eg "someone who gets stuff out of bins". ('Skipping' tends to specifically mean "getting food from supermarket bins" though obviously it can be anything from any bin).
I'm arriving extremely late to this conversation, but I'm translating something that has to do with "cartoneros", but also with "carreros", how would you translate that? Besides, I have to translate the pphrase "barrio urbano-marginal", and I can't find an equivalent that really fulfils my expectations... The most suitables so far are: "vulnerable marginal areas" or "urban marginal areas" (though I'm not sure if this one is really explanatory of what the phrase means in Spanish). I have just discovered this blog, it's great! I hope it's still working. Greetings, Sofía
Sofia, I've never heard the term carreros - are they the same as cartoneros? what country? on the second term I would just go super literal myself.
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