I joined the University of Glasgow in January 2025. Prior to that, I held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Geography at Durham University, a Departmental Lectureship in Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, and was a Lecturer in Human Geography at King’s College London (KCL). I completed a DPhil (PhD) at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) at the University of Oxford (2020), an MLitt at the University of St Andrews (2014), and a BA at Humboldt University of Berlin (2013).

My work has been published in Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Political Geography, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Geoforum, Area, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Migration & Society, Forced Migration Review as well as media outlets such as The Guardian, Open Democracy, Africa Is A Country, African Arguments, Democracy In Africa, Zeit Online, Think Africa Press, Africa at LSE Blog, Afrika Süd, Forced Migration Studies Blog, Germany's Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb), and the social justice platform Pambazuka News.

My research has been funded by the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), QR Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF—University of York), and the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes).

I am a political and development geographer interested in migration, displacement, humanitarianism, race, de/coloniality, policing, carcerality, and abolitionism. My research has focused primarily on Eastern Africa, especially Kenya, where I have conducted long-term ethnographic work.

My current research seeks to understand:

1. Carceral Mobilities and Abolitionism. My research in this area has sought to explore the relationship between carceral forms of power and abolitionist desires for freedom that emerge in their wake. My work on camp abolition has theorised the refugee camp as a key technology of global capture whose 'protective' logics have hitherto shielded it from more radical anti-carceral politics. My current British Academy funded project Carceral Corridors: Migrant Detention and Disrupted Mobility in Kenya goes beyond formal sites of encampment and sheds new light on the momentary, interstitial, and often unnoticed carceral experiences of East Africans on the move.

2. Creative Approaches to Migration, Citizenship, and Belonging. I am interested in advancing new ways of conducting research on migration, asylum, and citizenship that are distinctly collaborative and critically reimagine knowledge co-production in the field. This has resulted in a special issue on "Camp Methodologies: The 'How' of Studying Camps" published in Area and another on "Humanizing Studies of Refuge and Displacement" published in Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees. Currently, I further collaborate with educator, writer, and poet Kodi Arnu Ngutulu on our project entitled Poetry on the Run which seeks to re-value the poetry and creative writings of refugees as theorisations of their own lived experiences.

3. Coloniality of Aid, Borders, and Population Control. My work in this area has explored enduring forms of colonial governance and securitisation of undesirable populations in postcolonial East Africa, especially the differential management of mobile bodies, the entanglement of camps and counter-terrorism, and the cultural text of refugee encampment. Based on my long-standing work in Kakuma refugee camp, I am currently completing my first book entitled Occupied Refuge: Humanitarian Colonization and the Camp in Kenya (forthcoming with Duke University Press).

4. Humanitarian Markets and Racial Capitalism. Most recently, I have developed an interest in racial capitalism and the political economy of 'markets' in humanitarian contexts. Alongside colleagues at the University of York (UK), I have examined the ways in which humanitarians, policymakers, and their corporate partners now reimagine camps and other spaces of aid as new frontiers of capitalist prospecting and extraction.

PUBLICATIONS:

Book

Brankamp, H. (forthcoming): Occupied Refuge: Humanitarian Colonization and the Camp in Kenya, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

Articles

Brankamp, H. and Ngutulu, K. A. (2024): Poetry On the Run, Migration and Society, 7, 217–226. (doi: 10.3167/arms.2024.070120)

Brankamp, H., de Jong, S., Mackinder, S., and Devenney, K. (2023): The camp as market frontier: Refugees and the spatial imaginaries of capitalist prospecting in Kenya, Geoforum, 145. (doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103843)

Brankamp, H. (2022): Feeling the refugee camp: Affectual research, bodies, and suspicion, Area, 54(3), 383-391. (doi: 10.1111/area.12739)

Weima, Y. and Brankamp, H. (2022): Camp methodologies: The “how” of studying camps, Area, 54(3), 338-346. (doi: 10.1111/area.12787)

Brankamp, H. and Glück, Z. (2022): Camps and counterterrorism: Security and the remaking of refuge in Kenya, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40(3), 528-548. (doi: 10.1177/02637758221093070).

Brankamp, H. (2022): Camp Abolition: Ending Carceral Humanitarianism in Kenya (and Beyond) Antipode, 54(1), 106-129. (doi: 10.1111/anti.12762).

Brankamp, H. (2021): Demarcating Boundaries: Against the ‘Humanitarian Embrace’, Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 37(2), 46-55. (doi: 10.25071/1920-7336.40791).

Brankamp, H. (2021): Introduction: Humanizing Studies of Refuge and Displacement? Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 37(2), 1-10. (doi: 10.25071/1920-7336.40958).

Brankamp, H. (2021): ‘Madmen, womanizers, and thieves’: moral disorder and the cultural text of refugee encampment in Kenya, Africa, 91(1), 153–176. (doi: 10.1017/s000197202000100x).

Brankamp, H. and Daley, P. (2020): Laborers, Migrants, Refugees: Managing Belonging, Bodies, and Mobility in (Post)Colonial Kenya and Tanzania, Migration and Society, 3, 113-129. (doi: 10.3167/arms.2020.030110).

Brankamp, H. (2020): Refugees in uniform: community policing as a technology of government in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 14(2), 270-290. (doi: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1725318).

Brankamp, H. (2019): ‘Occupied Enclave’: Policing and the underbelly of humanitarian governance in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, Political Geography, 71, 67-77. (doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.02.008).

Brankamp, H. (2016): Community Policing in Kakuma camp, Kenya, Forced Migration Review, 53, 51-22.

Book Sections

Brankamp, H. (forthcoming): Africa, In: Espiritu, Yen Le (ed), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Refugee Studies, SAGE.

Brankamp, H. (forthcoming): Refugee Camps, In: Falola, T. and Mbah, E. M. (eds), The Routledge Encyclopaedia of African Studies, Routledge.

Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Hanno Brankamp, Elisa Pascucci, Lisa Ann Richey, James Smith, Lewis Turner, Tammam Aloudat, William Plowright (2023): Humanitarian Futures, In: Mitchell, K. and Pallister-Wilkins, P. (eds): The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Philanthropy and Humanitarianism, 292-304. (doi: 10.4324/9781003162711-25).

Brankamp, H. (2023): Ostafrika, In: Flucht- und Flüchtlingsforschung: Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium, 695-700. (doi: 10.5771/9783748921905-695).

Book Reviews

Brankamp, H. (forthcoming): Review of Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, Architecture of Migration: The Dadaab Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Settlement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), Journal of Modern African Studies. [Book Review]

Brankamp, H. (2023): Migrant ‘Voices’ and Life Saving Beyond Humanitarianism?, Review of Polly Pallister Wilkins, Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives, London: Verso, Society and Space. [Book Review]

Brankamp, H. (2022): Review of Nandita Sharma, Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, State Crime Journal (doi: 10.13169/statecrime.11.1.0152). [Book Review]

Brankamp, H. (2020): Review of Irit Katz, Diana Martin, and Claudio Minca (eds) (2018): Camps Revisited: Multifaceted Spatialities of a Modern Political Technology, London: Rowman & Littlefield, Social & Cultural Geography (doi: 10.1080/14649365.2019.1643587). [Book Review]

Brankamp, H. (2019): Review of Paul Higate and Mats Utas (eds), Private Security in Africa: From Global Assemblages to the Everyday, London: Zed Books, Africa, 89 (4), 765-767. (doi: 10.1017/S0001972019000718). [Book Review]

Public Scholarship:

Brankamp, H. and Maina, A. (2024): From Nairobi to Berlin: Borders and the trade in ‘surplus workers’, Forced Migration Studies Blog.

Brankamp, H. and Glück, Z. (2023): Kenya should stop treating refugees as potential terrorists, Africa at LSE Blog.

Brankamp, H. (2021): The imagined immorality of refuge, Africa Is A Country.

Brankamp, H. (2018): Jak TEDx przyjechał do obozu dla uchodźców, Krytyka Politycna. [In Polish]

Brankamp, H. (2018): The cynical recasting of refugees as raconteurs can't mask the grim reality, The Guardian.

Brankamp, H. (2018): TEDx comes to the refugee camp (aka Think Your Way out of Oppression!), African Arguments.

Brankamp, H. (2018): Die wahre "Flüchtlingskrise": Flucht und Vertreibung in Afrika, Kursdossier: Zuwanderung, Flucht und Asyl, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Federal Agency for Civic Education. [In German]

Brankamp, H. (2016): Contribution to Fluchtforschung gegen Mythen 4, Forced Migration Studies Blog. [In German]

Brankamp, H. and Glasman, J. (2016): Flucht und Vertreibung in Afrika: Camps, Kontrollen und Konventionen, Forced Migration Studies Blog. [In German]

Brankamp, H. (2016): Closing the camps: Kenya’s déjà-vu politics, Democracy in Africa.

Brankamp, H. and Glasman, J. (2016): Europa ist nicht das Zentrum der Flüchtlingskrise, Zeit Online. [In German]

Brankamp, H. (2016): Good camps, bad camps: What’s wrong with the ‘Jungle’?, Open Democracy.

Brankamp, H. (2016): Ostafrikas Flüchtlinge, Afrika Süd, Heft 3. [In German]

Brankamp, H. (2015): #WhatWouldMagufuliDo sparks new bout of Tanzaphilia, African Arguments.

Brankamp, H. (2015): Germany’s new scramble for Africa?, Africa Is A Country.

Brankamp, H. (2015): Some refugees more equal than others, Africa Is A Country.

Brankamp, H. (2015): Challenging the "Refugee-Victim" Narrative, Pambazuka News, Issue 733.

Brankamp, H. (2015): Kakuma: Anatomie der Sicherheitslage, Forced Migration Studies Blog. [In German]

Brankamp, H. (2015): The Question of ‘Internal Colonialism’, Pambazuka News, Issue 710.

Brankamp, H. (2015): Wahlfieber in Tansania: John Magufuli neuer Präsident, Afrika Süd, Heft 6. [In German]

Brankamp, H. (2014): Pan-ethnicity and memories of violence in pre-1994 Burundi and Rwanda, Pambazuka News, Issue 692.

Brankamp, H. (2014): Rwanda: To what extent did the Hamitic Myth prepare the ground for 1994?, Pambazuka News, Issue 683.

Brankamp, H. (2014): Tanzania: CCM's Identity Crisis - Comebacks, Constitution and Corruption in Tanzania, Think Africa Press.

Brankamp, H. (2014): Villagisation and State Crime in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region, International State Crime Initiative (ISCI).

Brankamp, H. (2013): Not Just Islam: How Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts Used Local Customs Think Africa Press.

Brankamp, H. (2013): Tanzania’s Islamist Militants: A Domestic Threat from a Domestic Context, Think Africa Press.