Melanie Samson

Melanie Samson is an associate professor in sociology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Her research arises out of and contributes to her work accompanying waste picker movements in South Africa and globally. Melanie facilitated the multi-party participatory process to develop the South African government’s “Waste Picker Integration Guideline for South Africa” and is the primary author of the guideline. She led stakeholder participation in the development of the South Africa Waste Picker Registration System (SAWPRS), as well as the piloting and initial rollout of the SAWPRS. The multi-media materials on waste picker integration that she and her team developed for the Reclaim, Revalue, Reframe project funded by the government of Japan and UNIDO can be found at www.wastepickerintegration.org. Melanie's academic work focuses on the political ecology of reclaiming, the production of value by non-wage workers, and reclaimers' struggles to redress gendered racial capitalism and achieve a just transition. Her publications are available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Melanie-Samson-3/research.