
Research interests
Urbanisation, migration, governance, politics, citizenship
Loren Landau
Loren B Landau is Professor of Migration and Development at the University of Oxford, Research Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand’s African Centre for Migration & Society, and co-director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab (MGL). He previously held visiting and faculty positions at Princeton, Georgetown, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He holds an MSc in Development Studies (LSE) and a PhD in Political Science (Berkeley) and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
His interdisciplinary scholarship explores mobility, multi-scale governance, and the transformation of socio-political communities across the Global South. Along with continued work on xenophobia, inclusion, and representation, he currently oversees a multi-year initiative exploring mobility, temporality, and urban politics in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. To help realign the politics of knowledge production on human mobility, he spearheads multiple initiatives supporting critical migration and urban studies across sub-Saharan Africa including the Academy for African Urban Diversity and the African Research University Alliance’s programme on ‘emerging urban subjectivities’ supporting doctoral students in Nairobi, Cape Town, Harare, Accra, and Johannesburg.
A frequent media resource on regional and global migration policy debates, he has published widely in the academic and popular press including the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. Publications include, The Humanitarian Hangover: Displacement, Aid, and Transformation in Western Tanzania (Wits Press); Forging African Communities: Mobility, Integration, and Belonging (Palgrave); I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in South Africa’s Great Metropolis (Wits Press); Contemporary Migration to South Africa (World Bank); and Exorcising the Demons Within: Xenophobia, Violence and Statecraft in Contemporary South Africa (UN University Press/Wits Press). He has consulted with the European Union, the World Bank, UNDP, UNHCR, UNECA, the Cities Alliance, and others. As chair of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (2004-2012) he served on the South African Immigration Advisory Board.
Loren teaches Qualitative Methods for Migration Research and the Politics of Urban Mobility in the Global South
Research students supervised
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Journal articles and special issuesLandau, Loren (with Iriann Freemantle )(2022) 'Migration and the African Timespace Trap: More Europe for the World, Less World for Europe ', Geopolitics 27 (3) : 791-810Landau, Loren (with Jean Pierre Misago )(2022) '‘Running Them Out of Time:’ Xenophobia, Violence, and Co-Authoring Spatiotemporal Exclusion in South Africa ', GeopoliticsLandau, Loren (with N Iskander )(2022) 'The Centre Cannot Hold: Arrival, Margins, and the Politics of Ambivalence ', Migration Studies 10 (2) : 97-111Landau, Loren (2021) 'Asynchronous mobilities: hostility, hospitality, and possibilities of justice ', MobilitiesLandau, Loren (with Tanya Zack )(2021) 'An enclave entrepôt: The informal migration industry and Johannesburg’s socio-spatial transformation ', Urban Studies : 1–19Landau, Loren (with CW Kihato )(2020) 'Coercion or the Social Contract? COVID-19 and Spatial (In)Justice in African Cities ', City & SocietyLandau, Loren (2019) 'A Chronotope of Containment Development: Europe’s Migrant Crisis and Africa’s Reterritorialization ', Antipode 51(1) : 169-86Landau, Loren (with CP Mapista )(2019) 'Measuring Municipal Capacity to Respond to Mobility ', Sage Open : 1-11
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ChaptersLandau, Loren (with D. Ndlovu )(2020) 'The Zimbabwe-South Africa Migration Corridor ', Routledge Handbook on Migration & Development London: RoutledgeLandau, Loren (2020) 'Framing the Politics of Inclusions: Introductory Commentary ', Local Inclusion of Migrants and Refugees: A Gateway to Existing Ideas, Resources and Capacities for Cities across the World Nairobi: UN HabitatLandau, Loren (2020) 'Governing Displaced Cities: Calibrating Reconstruction amidst Instability ', Urban Recovery at the Intersection of Displacement and Reconstruction London: RoutledgeLandau, Loren (with CW Kihato )(2020) 'The Informalisation of Migration Governance across Africa’s Urban Archipelagos ', Routledge Handbook on Migration & Development London: RoutledgeLandau, Loren (2020) 'The Times of Invisibility ', Invisibility in African Displacements: From Structural Marginalization to Strategies of Avoidance London: Zed Books : 252-258Landau, Loren (2019) 'Shunning Solidarity: Durable Solutions in a Fluid Era ', Shaping the Struggles of Their Times: Refugees, Peacebuilding and Resolving Displacement Washington DC: Georgetown University Press : 153-167Landau, Loren (2019) 'Capacity, Complicity, and Subversion: Revisiting Collaborative Refugee Research in an Era of Containment ', Reflections on a Decade of the Refugee Research Network Calgary: University of Calgary Press : 25-44
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ReportsLandau, Loren (2021) 'Interim Evaluation of Joint Work Programme on Cities & Migration. ', Cities Alliance and the Swiss Agency for Development and CooperationLandau, Loren (with K. Bule )(2020) 'A Drop in the Ocean: Labour Market Effects of South Africa’s Special Dispensation for Southern African Migrants ', Report for the International Labour Organisation and the South African Department of LabourLandau, Loren (with CW Kihato )(2019) 'The Future of Mobility and Migration Within and From Sub-Saharan Africa ', Foresight Reflection Paper. Brussels: European Policy Analysis and Strategy System