CARTONERA TO RECOVERY
COMMISSIONED BY ST ANDREWS UNIVERSITY
DECEMBER 23
A podcast documentary about how Dr Patrick O’Hare, Social Anthropologist at the University of St Andrews, brought Cartonera to Scotland.
Cartonera is a publishing movement that grew out of the Argentine economic crisis of 2001. They became known as ‘cartoneros’, after the cartón (cardboard) that they collected on the streets of cities such as Buenos Aires. Since then, the Cartonera model has spread across Latin America and the world.
Patrick initiated the first Cartonera project in Scotland, a collaboration with the Creative Change Collective (CCC), a charity working with people in recovery from addiction and in the criminal justice system. CCC tackles social problems through the creative arts, building community and empowering people, an approach that chimes with the cartonera ethos.
CCC heard about Cartonera and invited Patrick to deliver a series of workshops at which the group would make a Cartonera book out of anonymous drama scripts. Participants would learn a new craft and build on the momentum of their arts-based recovery by creating a book series that could be distributed amongst participants, friends, family, policymakers, and an interested public.
Recorded and Narrated by Patrick O’Hare
Audio Production: Lucia Scazzocchio