Kudakwashe Vanyoro is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa interested in migration, temporality, borders, humanitarianism and governance in Africa. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) in 2021-2023 as part of the PROTECT project.

At ACMS, he worked on migration and health systems as part of the Wellcome Trust-funded Migration and Health Project Southern Africa (maHp) (hosted at ACMS), with a particular focus on mobility between Zimbabwe and South Africa and issues related to medical xenophobia, referral, and harmonisation of treatment protocols across the two countries. His doctoral research explored how temporal disruptions at international borders shape (im)mobile bodies’ experiences and modes of waiting by focusing on irregular Zimbabwean migrant men at the Zimbabwe-South Africa border who have arrived in South Africa but are restricted in moving further into the interior. Through this inquiry, his work reveals how waiting is a component of both governing Zimbabwean migrants as well as seeking agency through the relationship between time, space, and humanitarianism in the Zimbabwe-South Africa border regime.

Kudakwashe has been part of the migration research community for this period and has a solid understanding of migration dynamics, patterns and issues in Southern Africa. In terms of knowledge production, he is the author of a book titled Migration, Crisis and Temporality at the Zimbabwe-South Africa Border: Governing Immobilities (Bristol University Press, 2023). Alongside this forthcoming monograph, he has published in a number of academic journals including: Gender & Development, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Globalizations, Journal of Southern African Studies, Anthropology Southern Africa, The Lancet, and Incarceration. His writing has won the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) Alternative Voices Competition Prize for writers under 30, and the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) 2022 Lisa Gilad Prize.

Kudakwashe has successfully undertaken assignments for several organisations including the African Union Commission, International Centre for Migration and Policy Development, International Organisation for Migration, World Bank, World Health Organisation and Pamoja Communications Ltd. He has also authored several policy briefs, working papers and reports and provided technical support and reviews.

Kudakwashe currently coordinates two courses in ‘Social Anthropology: African Ethnography’ (postgraduate), and ‘Lifeworlds of the City’ (undergraduate).