John Marnell is a postdoctoral fellow at the African Centre for Migration Society. His primary field of research is queer and trans displacement, with a focus on comparative and multi-scalar perspectives. More broadly, he is interested in how moral b/orders are socially, spatially and symbolically constructed and how these inform or conflict with formal modes of migration governance. With B Camminga, he is the series editor for Queer and Trans Migrations, published by Bloomsbury Academic, and the co-coordinator of the African LGBTQI+ Migration Research Network (ALMN).
John’s writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including peer-reviewed journals, online commentary platforms and traditional news outlets. He is the author of Seeking Sanctuary: Stories of Sexuality, Faith and Migration (Wits University Press, 2021) and a co-editor of two collections: East Africa Queer and Trans Displacements (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) and Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora (Zed Books, 2022) – the latter winning the 2023 African Studies Review Prize for Best Anthology or Edited Collection. In 2025, John received the QASA Award for Best Published Scholarly Essay by a Graduate Student, for his paper ‘Radical Imaginings: Queering the Politics and Praxis of Participatory Arts-Based Research’.
John convenes the ACMS course ‘Logics and Methods of Inquiry for Migration Research’ (SOSS7026A). General areas of supervision: gender and sexuality, urban displacement, everyday bordering, moral governance and the politics of belonging.