Benjamin Etzold

Benjamin Etzold is a social geographer and migration scholar with more than 16 years of experience in studying people’s vulnerability and livelihoods, trajectories of migration and displacement, as well as informal labour relations and patterns of food security. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Bonn (2012).

At BICC, he is currently leading the BMZ-funded project ‘Return and Belonging after Conflict-induced Displacement’ (ReMIG), and contributing to BMBF-funded collaborative project “Forced Migration and Refugee Studies: Networking and Knowledge Transfer” (FFVT). He also recently completed a study on “Food Security and Conflict Dynamics in Northern Kenya” (FooCo, 2022-2023). From 2019-2022, he led the interdisciplinary EU-funded research project “Transnational Figurations of Displacement” (TRAFIG) as scientific coordinator. This project looked into the role of mobility and translocal connectivity for people in protracted displacement situations.

Benjamin published two books, “The Politics of Street Food. Contested Governance and Vulnerabilities in Dhaka’s Field of Street Vending” (2013) and “Illegalisierte Migration in der Flüssigen Moderne. Migration aus Afrika und die europäische Grenzsicherungspolitik” (2009), and an edited volume: “Environment, Migration and Adaptation. Evidence and Politics of Climate Change in Bangladesh” (2015 with B. Mallick).

His work has also been published in Population, Space and Place; Geographica Helvetica; Erdkunde; Die Erde; Geographische Rundschau; Climate and Development; Migration and Development; Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Comparative Population Studies; International Quarterly for Asian Studies; and in multiple books.