Rate My Professor Kavita Datta

Professor Kavita Datta is a Professor of Development Geography at Queen Mary University of London, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, School of Society and Environment. She earned her B.A. from the University of Botswana and PhD from the University of Cambridge. In her leadership capacities, she is Interim Deputy Vice-Principal (Humanities and Social Sciences), Head of the School of Geography since 1 January 2022, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Migration. Additionally, she serves as an Elected Representative for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences on Queen Mary’s Council and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Datta’s academic interests lie at the intersection of migration, money, and food. Her research is interdisciplinary, international, and collaborative, partnering with academic colleagues, policymakers, migrant and civic institutions. She examines climate resilience through migrant remittances and food security, remittances as embodied practices in emotional and affective economies alongside financial flows and digitalization, food insecurity in diverse contexts including severe acute malnutrition in Zimbabwe and cultural food insecurity among migrants in London, as well as food cultures, their shifts over time and generations, and practices tied to home and family. Throughout her career, she has produced impactful scholarship. Notable books include Migrants and their Money: Surviving Financial Exclusion in London (Policy Press and University of Chicago Press, 2012), Global Cities at Work: Migrant Labour in an Uneven World (Pluto, 2010, co-authored with J. Wills et al.), Housing and Finance in Developing Countries (Routledge, 1999, co-edited with G.A. Jones), and the co-edited Elgar Companion to Migration and the Sustainable Development Goals (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024, with N. Piper). Key recent publications feature ‘Road runners’ and Fanta: Intersectional cultural food in/security among Zimbabwean migrants living in UK cities (Global Food Security, 2024), Caring for children with SAM: Intersectional stories of shame, blame and stigmatisation in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya (Global Public Health, 2024), and Migration and remittance patterns in a context of mobile global crisis/crises (International Migration Review, 2024).