Stephanie Maher joined the African Center for Migration & Society as a postdoctoral fellow in 2017. She previously conducted ethnographic research on clandestine migration, religious aspiration, and forced repatriation in Senegal (2008-2014), and received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Washington in 2015. Building on her previous work with West African migrants, her current research examines the extent to which immigrants and refugees in South African townships use their religious affiliations to access resources such as housing and employment, and how faith-based organisations constitute a new form of political authority in urban South Africa.