ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the political work performed by the concept “waste picker integration”. Within the literature waste picker integration is theorised as: (1) charity; (2) participation; (3) multifaceted; and (4) social transformation. The first three conceptualisations each assume that waste pickers will be integrated into new municipal or industry recycling systems. The chapter argues that the charity approach to integration should be theorised as a form of erasure, as it is predicated on the erasure of: reclaiming as a productive activity, reclaimers’ knowledge, the recyclingscape created by reclaimers, the fact that reclaimers forged this sphere of accumulation; and reclaimers’ very humanity. These erasures consolidate existing power relations; dispossess reclaimers; exacerbate their political, social, epistemic and economic marginalisation; and open new spheres of accumulation for capital and patronage for the local state. To varying degrees, integration as participation and a multifaceted process are rooted in the same erasures. The concluding section explores the transformative political work that is possible when focus is shifted from waste picker integration to the integration of municipalities and industry into the existing recyclingscape established by reclaimers.
