Recycling the city: The impact of urban change on the informal waste-recovery trade in Hanoi, Vietnam

This three-paper dissertation explores how broader (and often unchallenged) changes to political economy at multiple geographic and economic scales impact long-standing 'informal' practices of waste recovery and recycling in Hanoi, Vietnam. This research is based on a survey of 575 informal waste collectors and 264 waste intermediaries as well as 73 in-depth interviews.;Paper II examines urbanization processes in contemporary Vietnam and how these changing spaces accommodate labour, and in turn support livelihoods. I argue that Vietnam's globalizing economy and urban transition have been a catalyst for the growth of the informal waste collector population in Hanoi, as well as a partial player in the gendering of the industry.;Paper III explores how one particular segment of the informal waste-recovery trade, waste intermediaries, is impacted by Hanoi's rapid urban change. I demonstrate in this paper that (1) waste intermediaries simultaneously gain and lose as a result of Hanoi's urban transition; and (2) the underlying forces of urban spatial change in different areas of the city are quite distinct, which will have an impact on the future of waste-recovery in Hanoi.;The key findings of this dissertation are: (1) A more thorough engagement with methods and a broader approach to understanding waste-recovery actors (through an engagement with political economy at multiple geographic and economic scales) will produce a more context-appropriate and compassionate understanding of this group of urban actors. (2) The livelihoods of informal waste-recovery workers are both directly and indirectly impacted by shifts in political economy, albeit in Hanoi these impacts (both positive and negative) vary by sex and sub-occupation (with respect to waste collectors), and scale of business and location in the city (with respect to waste intermediaries).;Paper I engages in a critique of methodological disclosure in current academic writings on informal waste-recovery activities and discusses the methodological difficulties of researching informal populations. My aim in this paper is to highlight that the lack of methodological disclosure in waste-recovery literature is problematic because it compromises the academic rigour of this field and impedes the reliability of researchers' policy recommendations as well as to initiate a dialogue with the aim of improving methodological rigour in waste-recovery literature.