“It’s not just about money”: An Ethnography of Rebusque Performances and Life-Stories on Public Transportation Buses in Downtown Bogotá, Colombia

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Venturing Out on the Buses
1.2 Context and Social Significance: Research Particularities and Performance Conditions
1.3 Methodological Approaches and Ethics
1.4 Ethnographic and Theoretical Background
1.5 Research Questions
1.6 Chapter Outline

Chapter 2: Spatio-Temporal Dimensions of Rebusque
2.1 The Space of the Bus within Urban and Public Spatialities
2.2 Pursuing and Getting on the Bus: Time and Relations with Bus Drivers
2.3 Relationships Between Bus Riders and Rebusque Workers

Chapter 3: Rebusque on the Buses is for More than Monetary Gain: Informal Workers Acting Against Conventional Misperceptions of their Work
3.1 Challenging the Criminality Perception
3.2 Challenging Widespread Misconceptions of Deceit and Lack of Hygiene in Rebusque
3.3 Addressing Conflicting Ideas of Rebusque as a Form of Work

Chapter 4: Beyond Monetary Gain: Rebusque on the Buses as Social Critique
4.1 Bus Performances as Informal Workers’ Expressions of Social Critique
4.2 Moral Economies and Bus Rebusque: Social Expectations for the State, and Workers who Want Formal Employment
4.3 Recent Neoliberal Labour Reform and State Interventions: Changing the Meanings of Formal and Informal Sectors

Chapter 5: Neoliberalism and Expressions of “Self-Reliance” and “Resilience” as negotiated through the Social Relations of Solidarity in Bus Rebusque
5.1 Solidarity as Emergent from People’s Shared Conditions across Colombian Space and Time
5.2 Solidarity as Shaped by Nationalist Sentiments Evoked in Rebusque
5.3 Religious Beliefs as Sources of Solidarity in Rebusque

Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research Ill

References