Bio

Anesu Makina is a Postdoctoral Researcher on the African Urban Futures project where her work centres on documenting sustainable infrastructure initiatives across Africa and some work on the circular economy. Anesu is a broadly trained human geographer with interests in infrastructure, the political ecologies of waste, and informality. For her doctoral research, she examined how street waste pickers (reclaimers) gain and maintain access to waste in the City of Tshwane, South Africa.

Her work opened an avenue through which to gain a deeper understanding of topics relevant to Southern cities such as conflict in informal economies, infrastructural labour, environmentalism, and spatial injustice. This work set the foundation through which to understand the circular economy in African countries because waste picking is often the first step in the recycling value chain for many waste fractions.

Anesu has a diverse academic and research background which includes gender studies, research and fieldwork on multilateral climate change negotiations, the interface between business and biodiversity, and understanding different waste streams such as plastics, electronic waste, and tyres.