2026 Towards Critical Apartheid Studies Conference

Join us for the 2026 Towards Critical Apartheid Studies Conference, featuring a keynote address by Prof. Loren Landau (University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Oxford).

Keynote Speaker
Prof. Loren Landau
University of the Witwatersrand & University of Oxford

Loren B. Landau is a 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). A political scientist by training, his interdisciplinary scholarship explores mobility, multi-scale governance, and the transformation of socio-political communities across the Global South.

Through the Atlas of Uncertainty and other initiatives, his research examines urbanity, xenophobia, representation, and the global political economy of knowledge.

His 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)
Xenophobia, Violence and Statecraft in Contemporary South Africa (UN University Press/Wits Press)

He also served as Chair of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (2004–2012) and was a member of the South African Immigration Advisory Board.

Lecture Title
An Apartheid of Uncertainty: Emerging Divisions in an Unsettled World

This keynote explores the evolving forms of uncertainty shaping contemporary societies and the emerging divisions that challenge belonging, mobility, governance, and democracy in an increasingly unsettled world.

Partners
This event is presented in collaboration with:
University of the Witwatersrand
Wits School of Social Sciences
Humanities Graduate Centre
Innovation Foundation for Democracy
IFAS Recherche