Friday 4 October 2019

Behind the research: Loren Landau


Over the course of the last 10 years, the Migrating out of Poverty consortium has drawn on the enthusiasm and expertise of many people across the globe. This blog series focuses on the people behind the research, who have kindly shared personal reflections and learning from their experience of working with the consortium.

Loren Landau is a Senior Researcher at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) at Wits University in Johannesburg, and was Director between 2006 to 2014 when the programme was in its early stages.
ACMS was one of the founding members of the consortium.  As an emerging research centre, this was an opportunity to partner with progressive scholars and institutions across the global south. In doing so, it offered a unique opportunity to shape research and policy agendas at multiple scales. By working through productive tensions, the consortium became stronger, the ACMS was able to expand its scope and ambitions, while I gained perspective and insight. 
Whether through my work on local government or overseeing broader questions of labour migration, urbanisation, and the migration industry, the consortium’s successes and shortcomings served as an intense education. Beyond generating empirical insights and knowledge, I – and the consortium –helped lay foundations for ever more critical and constructive consideration of partnerships, in engagement, and in the politics of research beyond the wealthy west. 
It has encouraged me to more deeply explore the formal and informal means of migration management at multiple levels while shifting how I work. Many now speak about south-south partnerships as the future of research. With Migrating out of Poverty we were able to forge and formalise those partnerships more than a decade ago.
The Migrating out of Poverty programme has been a true team effort, and we appreciate the role each individual has played in producing and disseminating the research.

Thank you for all your hard work with the Migrating out of Poverty programme, Loren!

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