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Portrait of Oliver Bakewell

Oliver Bakewell

Reader in Migration Studies, University of Manchester
EducationPhD and MSc in Development Studies, University of Bath
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/oliver.bakewell.html

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Spring 2023

Research focus while a CERC Scholar  

While a CERC Scholar, Oliver will be exploring how ideas of migration governance are generated, circulated and taken up and/or subverted by various actors, including different levels of government, intergovernmental, international and civil society organizations and academics. Drawing on findings from his research in East Africa and the Horn, he will focus on how the notion of safe, orderly and regular migration has become embedded in global migration governance and its implications for mobility across the region. 

Related to CERC research theme: The Governance of Migration in a Globalizing World

Career Achievements

Oliver Bakewell is a Reader in Migration Studies at the Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester. His work focuses on the intersections between migration and mobility and processes of development and change, with an empirical focus on migration within Africa. He is currently working on a range of projects including the Research and Evidence Facility (external link)  of the EU Trust Fund for Africa (Horn of Africa); Effects of Externalisation (external link) : EU Migration Management in Africa and the Middle East (EFFEXT); and, the Global Challenge Research Hub on South-South Migration and Inequality, co-leading the Poverty and Income Inequalities (external link)  work package.

Prior to joining GDI, he spent over a decade at the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. He was one of the founder members of the International Migration Institute and became Co-Director and then Director. Before taking up this role at Oxford, Oliver spent many years working with migrants and refugees both as a researcher and a practitioner with a range of development and humanitarian NGOs.

Relevant Publications

With C. Sturridge (2021). Extreme Risk Makes the Journey Feasible: Decision-Making amongst Migrants in the Horn of Africa. Social Inclusion 9(1): 186-195.

(2021). Unsettling the Boundaries between Forced and Voluntary Migration. Handbook on the Politics and Governance of Migration. E. Carmel, K. Lenner and R. Paul. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar: 122-136.

(2021). Humanizing Refugee Research in a Turbulent World. Refuge 37(2): 63-69.

(2020). Undocumented Migration and Development. Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development. T. Bastia and R. Skeldon. London, Routledge: 74-83.

With Van Hear, N. and K. Long (2018). Push-pull plus: reconsidering the drivers of migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44(6): 927-944.

With L. B. Landau, Eds. (2018). Forging African Communities: Mobility, Integration and Belonging. Global Diversities. London, Palgrave.

(2015). Moving from War to Peace in the Zambia-Angola Borderlands. Mobility Makes States. D. Vigneswaran and J. Quirk. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press: 194-217.

(2014). Relaunching Migration Systems. Migration Studies 2(3): 300-318.

(2009). South-South Migration and Human Development: Reflections on African Experiences. Human Development Research Papers. New York, United Nations Development Programme. 2009.

(2008). Research beyond the categories: the importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(4): 432-453.

(2000). Repatriation and Self-settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems. Journal of Refugee Studies 13(4): 356-373.