Rate My Professor Loren Landau

Professor Loren Landau is a Research Professor at the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (2002), an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics, and additional degrees including a BA and MA. His academic background is in political science with interdisciplinary work on mobility, governance, and socio-political transformation in the Global South.

Landau serves as Professor of Migration and Development at the University of Oxford and co-director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab. He previously held the position of South African Research Chair in Human Mobility and the Politics of Difference at Wits and was founding director of the African Centre for Migration & Society. His research specializations include urbanization, migration, multi-scale governance, citizenship, xenophobia, and the politics of difference across Africa and the Global South. Key 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 for organizations including the World Bank, UNHCR, UNDP, and the European Union, and served as chair of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (2004–2012) and on the South African Immigration Advisory Board. He is a frequent contributor to media outlets such as the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and will be a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for the 2026–2027 academic year.