Getting to know Professor Daniel Tevera, the new AHMR Editor
Professor Daniel Tevera has joined the AHMR editorial board as editor. With so many years as a migration scholar, researcher, and migration policy analyst he brings extensive migration experience to the journal. He is an NRF-rated scholar, and he is an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Geography, Environmental Studies and Tourism at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). He joined UWC in December 2012 after almost three decades in academia, during which time he held several academic appointments in Botswana, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Zimbabwe. He has been Professor of Human Geography at the universities of Zimbabwe and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). At the University of Zimbabwe, he held several leadership positions including Head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University (UK), Dartmouth College (USA), Gothenburg University (Sweden), and Friedrich-Schiller University (Germany). He has also been a Swedish Institute Fellow at the University of Stockholm in Sweden. Last year he was featured by the Department of Geography at the University of Florida (USA) as one of the influential Black African Geographers during their February Black History month celebrations.
Professor Tevera’s research has focused on African migration, African urbanism and urban livelihoods, urban food security, and environmental security. However, it is the domains of migration and urban food that his recent work has focused on. He has received widespread recognition for his collaborative and interdisciplinary research that involves the use of mixed research methods to study African migration.
During the past 20 years Prof Tevera has actively participated in the Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP) and has been involved in research on the following themes: Zimbabwean migration; Transnational entrepreneurship and informal cross border trade between Zimbabwe and South Africa; Zimbabwean migration and remittance flows; Brain drain from Zimbabwe; Xenophobic violence in South Africa; Short labour migration schemes in southern Africa. Professor Tevera’s current MiFood (Migration and Food) research project focuses on the intersection between migration and urban food security in South Africa.
His recent migration publications include:
- Crush, J., Tevera, D., Tawodzera, G. and Chikanda, A., Ramachandran, S. (2022) Government Responses to Xenophobic Violence Against Zimbabwean Migrants in South Africa. In: Albert Kraler, Robtel Neajai Pailey and Maegan Hendow (Eds.), Migrants Caught in Crisis: When Conflict or Disaster Strikes a Host Country (London: Routledge), (In press).
- Crush, J., Tawodzera, G., Chikanda, A. and Tevera, D. (2017). “The Owners of Xenophobia: Zimbabwean Enterprise and Xenophobic Violence in South Africa,” African Human Mobility Review, 3(2017): 878-909.
- Tevera, D. (2015). International Migration and Development in Lesotho: A Complex Interrelationship, In: W.H. Khonje (ed.). Migration and Development: Perspectives from Small States, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, pp. 309-324.
- Peberdy, S., Crush, J., Tevera, D., Campbell, E., Zindela, N., Raimondo, I., Green, T., Chikanda, A. and Tawodzera, G. (2015). ‘Transnational Entrepreneurship and Informal Cross Border Trade with South Africa’. In: Jonathan Crush, Abel Chikanda, Caroline Skinner (eds.). Mean Streets: Migration, Xenophobia and Informality in South Africa, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Cape Town and Ottawa, pp. 207-228.
The MiFood (Migration and Food) Project focuses on the migration and food nexus in South Africa, and it is part of a global South project that includes four other African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and Namibia).
Some of his most recent migration research activities include the following:
- Research on Transnational entrepreneurship and informal cross border trade between Zimbabwe and South Africa.
- International migration and remittance flows: to households in Zimbabwe and socio-spatial impact.
- Brain drain from Zimbabwe.
These projects got funding from CIDA/SAMP, following a competitive grant development application process.
Professor Tevera’s research on migration has supported evidence-based policy making while at the same time remaining academically rigorous and this makes it relevant. In 2017 he was invited by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to join the informal group that advises its Social Development Policy Division to identify and remedy the existing gaps in programmatic and policy responses to African migration.
Some of his recent keynote addresses and international presentations on migration and development issues include the following:
- ‘Zimbabwean migrant entrepreneurs and xenophobic violence in South Africa’. Paper presented at the Migration-Mobility workshop, University of the Western Cape, 2019.
- ‘Return migration: Rethinking displacement and disconnection’. Paper presented at the University of the Western Cape during the South Africa - Sweden Research and Innovation Week, 2019.
- ‘The dreaded Musina-Beitbridge Border: Another look at the border experiences of Zimbabwe Informal Cross Border Traders’, Paper presented at the conference of the African Studies Association in Germany, Leipzig University, 2018.
- ‘Informality, cross-border mobility, and regional integration in southern Africa: Do we need to worry?’, Paper presented at the Nordic Africa Days, Uppsala, Sweden, 2018.
- ‘Spaces of waithood? The experiences of micro-entrepreneurs at Zimbabwean border posts’. Paper presented at the GovInn International Conference on African borders, human mobility, continental integration and development, held at the CSIR Convention Centre in Pretoria, South Africa, 2017.
- ‘Social protection of transnational migrants in Manzini, Swaziland: Context, challenges and responses’. Paper presented at the ILERA International Congress held in Cape Town, South Africa, 2015.
- ‘Harnessing remittances and diaspora involvement for social protection of migrants and their families’. Paper presented at the SASPEN and FES International Conference on Social Protection for Migrants in the SADC: Prospects, Vulnerability and Benefits Across Borders, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, 2014
He has published several edited books and over a hundred scholarly papers on migration, urban food security and environmental security. His co-edited books include the influential book on Zimbabwe’s Exodus: Crisis, Migration and Survival (ISBN: 978-1-920409-22-7) that he co-edited with Professor Jonathan Crush. He has presented more than 70 papers at national and international conferences, workshops, and seminars. Professor Tevera has supervised over 100 doctoral, master’s and honours students.
Professor Tevera has been a regular reviewer of migration related manuscripts submitted for possible publication to several international academic journals including Afrika Focus, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Geoforum, Habitat International, Journal of Social Development in Africa, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, Review of African Political Economy, and Third World Planning Review
With his strong background in research and publications, Professor Tevera is enthusiastically looking forward to the new AHMR appointment as editor and would like to assist the editorial team to take the journal to the next level. He looks forward to continuing to support the growth of the AHMR and intends to help take it to the next level. To this end, he plans to attract paper contributions to the journal from all regions of Africa and from scholars from a diverse range of disciplines including migration studies, development studies, Geography, Economics and Political Science.
Professor Tevera holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Cincinnati (USA), a MA in geography from Queen’s University (Canada) and a BA in Geography and Education from the University of Sierra Leone.
Professor Daniel Tevera
Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Geography, Environmental Studies and Tourism at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
AHMR Editor
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