Abstract
<jats:p>This chapter discusses dignity from the perspective of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, while critically addressing its hegemonic, North-centric conception, which is incapable of confronting systemic injustices. In response, the study adopts a counter-hegemonic approach to human dignity. A field research study conducted in recycling cooperatives in Brazil defines these spaces as a “zone of non-being” and investigates whether the knowledge of their workers is effectively recognized. The findings suggest that, despite pressures of invisibility produced by capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal systems, cooperative members develop forms of resistance. However, they also produce absences, either from established relationships with external social actors, or due to insufficient resources to deal with unhealthy conditions, or because they are exposed to the values of dominant systems as socialized human beings. It is concluded that post-abyssal dignity emerges as a form of resistance in the field studied, but is influenced by dominant hegemonic structures.</jats:p>