anthropologist, geographer, social theorist, social critic
Nicholas De Genova
Houston, 2023
Nicholas De Genova is a scholar of migration, borders, race, citizenship, and labor. During the 2024-25 academic year, he is a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
He holds an appointment as Professor in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston, where he served as Chair of the department (2018-24). He previously held teaching appointments in urban and political geography at King's College London, and in sociocultural anthropology at Stanford, Columbia, and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as visiting professorships or research positions at the Universities of Warwick, Bern, and Amsterdam.
He received his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Chicago.
RECENT
Articles / Chapters / Interviews:
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“From Border War to Civil War:
The Despotism of the Border and Full-Spectrum Authoritarianism”
Citizenship Studies (Published online: May 15, 2025)
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“The Blackness of Labor, the Blackness of Migration”
in Michaeline A. Crichlow and Patricia Northover, eds.
Decoloniality in the Break of Global Blackness (New York: Routledge, 2025)
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“Migrant ‘Illegality’ and Deportability in Everyday Life” [Greek translation]
in Nelli Kampouri and Olga Lafazani, eds.
ΟριακÎς αντιστάσεις. ΚριτικÎς Προσεγγίσεις της Μετανάστευσης [Border Resistances: Critical Approaches on Migration] (Athens: Antipodes, 2025)
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“Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and the Vocation of the Intellectual”
PARISS: Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences, (2024) Number 5
Special Forum: PARISS Collective, “Biographical Reflections On Academic Freedom—Part One”; pp. 15-18
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“Border Abolitionism: Analytics/ Politics”
(co-authored with Martina Tazzioli)
Social Text Volume 41, Number 3 (Issue #156) (First published online: 27 September 2023)
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“A Racial Theory of Labour: Racial Capitalism from Colonial Slavery to Postcolonial Migration”
Historical Materialism Volume 31, Number 3 (First published online: 31 May 2023)
Special thematic issue: “Race and Capital”
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“Migration, Race, and the Racializing Strategy of Borders”
International Migration, Volume 62, Number 5 (Published online: September 15, 2024)
“Commentary” on the theme of “Migration and Race”
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“COVID Capitalism: The Contested Logistics of Migrant Labour Supply Chains in the Double Crisis”
(co-authored with Stephan Scheel and Soledad Álvarez Velasco)
Politics Volume 44, Number 2 (First published online: February 18, 2024)
Introduction to special thematic issue: “COVID Capitalism: The Contested Logistics of Migrant Labour Supply Chains in the Double Crisis”
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Cultural Dynamics Volume 35, Number 4 (First published online: 15 October 2023)
Special Book Review forum on: Denise Ferreira da Silva, Unpayable Debt
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(interview conducted and co-authored with Soledad Álvarez Velasco)
Studies in Social Justice Volume 17, Number 1 (2023)
Special thematic issue: “Farm Work, Migration and the Diverse Forms of Struggle for Social Justice”
*In Spanish: “Las caravanas migrantes: Una fuerza y forma de resistencia innegable: Conversación con el periodista honidureño Inmer Gerardo Chevez”Desacatos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales #70 (Published online: 5 October 2022) (Mexico City)
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“Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Standpoint”
A collective writing project involving 22 co-authors; coordinated, co-edited, and introduced by Nicholas De Genova and Martina Tazzioli
Environment & Planning C: Politics and Space Volume 40, Number 4 (2022; first published online: March 10, 2021)​
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“The Vicious Circle: Policing and the Culture of White Male Violence”
Spectre (published online: April 13, 2021)
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in Catherine Ramírez, Sylvanna Falcón, Juan Poblete, Steve McKay, and Felicity Amaya Schaeffer (eds.),
Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021)
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Anonymous Brown Bodies: The Productive Power of the Deadly U.S.-Mexico Border”
From the European South Number 9 (published online: 5 November 2021)
Special Focus thematic section: “Borders, Race, and Global Mediascapes: Deconstructing Violence in Politics and Representations”
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“Life versus Capital: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Politics of Life”
Cultural Dynamics Volume 33, Number 3 (published online: May 4, 2021)
Special thematic issue: “Post-Covid: Transforming Market Economies”
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Podcast: Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation
Luke de Noronha in conversation with Nicholas De Genova (recorded 8 February 2021; posted online: 10 March 2021)
Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London
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“American Carnage: Police Racism, Riots, and Racial Justice”
Spectre (published online: June 15, 2020)
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“‘Everything Is Permitted’: Trump, White Supremacy, Fascism”
American Anthropologist Volume 122, Number 1 (published online: March 23, 2020)
Commentary, online supplement to Special Section on “The Anthropology of White Supremacy”
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“Kidnapping Migrants as a Tactic of Border Enforcement”
(co-authored with Martina Tazzioli)
Environment & Planning D: Society and Space Volume 38, Number 5 (published online: May 22, 2020)
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PARISS: Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences Volume 1, Number 2 (December 2020)
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in Christine M. Jacobsen, Marry-Anne Karlsen, and Shahram Khosravi (eds.),
Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration (London & New York: Routledge, 2021)​
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“Postcolonial Borderwork, Migrant Illegality, and the Politics of Incorrigibility”
Interview with Nicholas De Genova conducted by Fiorenza Picozza & Guillermo Castillo
Latin American Information Agency (ALAI) (December 15, 2020)
* In Spanish: Rebelión.org / Desinformémonos.org / Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI) (December 23, 2020) AlterInfos América Latina (3 March 2021)
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“On Standby … at the Borders of ‘Europe’”
ephemera: theory & politics in organization Volume 21, Number 1 (February 2021; published online: September 4, 2020)
Special thematic issue: “Standby: Organizing modes of in|activity”​
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(co-authored with Ananya Roy)
Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography Volume 52, Number 2
Special thematic issue: “New Poverty Politics for Changing Times” (published online: 24 January 2020)​
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“Conversation on Global Capitalism, Borders, and Migration”
Interview with Nicholas De Genova conducted by Olivia Maury and Daria Krivonos
Kontur Number 7 (Helsinki, Finland; 2020)
Special thematic issue: “Borders & Capitalism”
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“The Economy of Detainability: Theorizing Migrant Detention”
in Julia Eckert, ed. The Bureaucratic Production of Difference: Ethos and Ethics in Migration Bureaucracies (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2020)
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“Latino Studies, Latino/a/X Futures: Provocations toward a Prospectus”
Cultural Dynamics Volume 31, Numbers 1–2 (February-May 2019)
Special thematic issue: “LatinX Studies: Variations and Velocities”
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Radical Philosophy Volume 2, Number 3 (December 2018)
Special thematic forum: “Dossier: Economies and Times of Deportation”
with contributions by Nicholas De Genova, Shahram Khosravi, Clara Lecadet, and William Walters
* In Portuguese: REMHU - Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana (Brasília, 2020)
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“Autonomy of Asylum? The Autonomy of Migration Undoing the Refugee Crisis Script”
(co-authored with Glenda Garelli and Martina Tazzioli)
Introduction to Special Thematic Issue on "Rethinking Migration and Autonomy from within the ‘Crises’”
SAQ: South Atlantic Quarterly Volume 117, Number 2 (April 2018)
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“Rebordering ‘the People’: Notes on Theorizing Populism”
SAQ: South Atlantic Quarterly Volume 117, Number 2 (April 2018)
Special thematic issue: “Rethinking Migration and Autonomy from within the ‘Crises’”
* In Spanish: Theorein: Revista de Ciencias Sociales (Quito, Ecuador; 2019)
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“Mediterranean Struggles for Movement and the European Government of Bodies:
An Interview with Étienne Balibar and Nicholas De Genova”
(Interview conducted by Glenda Garelli, Alessandra Sciurba, and Martina Tazzioli)
Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography Volume 50, Number 3 (June 2018)
Special thematic issue: “Mediterranean Movements: Mobility Struggles and the Humanitarian Frontier”
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Migration, Activist Research, and the Politics of Location: An Interview with Nicholas De Genova
Interview conducted in Istanbul by Cemile Gizem Dinçer and Eda Sevinin (in two parts)
Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology
FocaalBlog.com (Part One: 12 November 2018 / Part Two: 14 November 2018)
* In Turkish: BirArtıBir / 1+1 Forum (27 and 30 March 2019; in two parts)
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“The ‘Migrant Crisis’ as Racial Crisis: Do Black Lives Matter in Europe?”
Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 41, Number 10 (August 2018)
Special thematic issue on "Race and Crisis"
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