anthropologist, geographer, social theorist, social critic
Nicholas De Genova
Houston, 2023
Nicholas De Genova is a scholar of migration, borders, race, citizenship, and labor. During the 2024-25 academic year, he was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
He holds an appointment as Professor in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston, where he served as Chair of the department (2018-24). He previously held teaching appointments in urban and political geography at King's College London, and in sociocultural anthropology at Stanford, Columbia, and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as visiting professorships or research positions at the Universities of Warwick, Bern, and Amsterdam.
He received his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Chicago.
Professor De Genova is among the initiating signatories of the Call for
The Migration Scholars Global Solidarity and Resistance Network
NEW Book
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Migration, Control, and Resistance
across Latin America and the Caribbean
(co-edited with Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Gustavo Dias, and Eduardo Domenech)
​Forthcoming from Duke University Press (February 2026)
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30% DISCOUNT on pre-orders of the paperback edition,
available now with code: E26BRDRS
Pre-order HERE
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RECENT
Articles / Chapters / Interviews:
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“From Border War to Civil War:
The Despotism of the Border and Full-Spectrum Authoritarianism”
Citizenship Studies Volume 29, Number 3-4 (Published online: May 15, 2025)
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“The Blackness of Labor, the Blackness of Migration”
in Michaeline A. Crichlow and Patricia Northover, eds.
Decoloniality in the Break of Global Blackness (New York: Routledge, 2025)
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“Postcoloniality, Race, and the Ruse of Asylum: An Interview with Nicholas De Genova”
(conducted by Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky)
in Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky with Leisy Abrego, Gaye Theresa Johnson and Maite Zubiaurre, eds.
Beyond Sanctuary: The Humanism of a World in Motion (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2025)​​
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“Migrant ‘Illegality’ and Deportability in Everyday Life” [Greek translation]
in Nelli Kampouri and Olga Lafazani, eds.
ΟριακÎς αντιστάσεις. ΚριτικÎς Προσεγγίσεις της Μετανάστευσης [Border Resistances: Critical Approaches on Migration] (Athens: Antipodes, 2025)​​
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“Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and the Vocation of the Intellectual”
PARISS: Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences, (2024) Number 5
Special Forum: PARISS Collective, “Biographical Reflections On Academic Freedom—Part One”; pp. 15-18
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“Border Abolitionism: Analytics/ Politics”
(co-authored with Martina Tazzioli)
Social Text Volume 41, Number 3 (Issue #156) (First published online: 27 September 2023)
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“A Racial Theory of Labour: Racial Capitalism from Colonial Slavery to Postcolonial Migration”
Historical Materialism Volume 31, Number 3 (First published online: 31 May 2023)
Special thematic issue: “Race and Capital”
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“Migration, Race, and the Racializing Strategy of Borders”
International Migration, Volume 62, Number 5 (Published online: September 15, 2024)
“Commentary” on the theme of “Migration and Race”
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“COVID Capitalism: The Contested Logistics of Migrant Labour Supply Chains in the Double Crisis”
(co-authored with Stephan Scheel and Soledad Álvarez Velasco)
Politics Volume 44, Number 2 (First published online: February 18, 2024)
Introduction to special thematic issue: “COVID Capitalism: The Contested Logistics of Migrant Labour Supply Chains in the Double Crisis”
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Cultural Dynamics Volume 35, Number 4 (First published online: 15 October 2023)
Special Book Review forum on: Denise Ferreira da Silva, Unpayable Debt
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(interview conducted and co-authored with Soledad Álvarez Velasco)
Studies in Social Justice Volume 17, Number 1 (2023)
Special thematic issue: “Farm Work, Migration and the Diverse Forms of Struggle for Social Justice”
*In Spanish: “Las caravanas migrantes: Una fuerza y forma de resistencia innegable: Conversación con el periodista honidureño Inmer Gerardo Chevez”Desacatos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales #70 (Published online: 5 October 2022) (Mexico City)
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“Minor Keywords of Political Theory: Migration as a Critical Standpoint”
A collective writing project involving 22 co-authors; coordinated, co-edited, and introduced by Nicholas De Genova and Martina Tazzioli
Environment & Planning C: Politics and Space Volume 40, Number 4 (2022; first published online: March 10, 2021)​
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“The Vicious Circle: Policing and the Culture of White Male Violence”
Spectre (published online: April 13, 2021)
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in Catherine Ramírez, Sylvanna Falcón, Juan Poblete, Steve McKay, and Felicity Amaya Schaeffer (eds.),
Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021)​​
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Podcast: Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation
Luke de Noronha in conversation with Nicholas De Genova (recorded 8 February 2021; posted online: 10 March 2021)
Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London
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“American Carnage: Police Racism, Riots, and Racial Justice”
Spectre (published online: June 15, 2020)
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“‘Everything Is Permitted’: Trump, White Supremacy, Fascism”
American Anthropologist Volume 122, Number 1 (published online: March 23, 2020)
Commentary, online supplement to Special Section on “The Anthropology of White Supremacy”
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“Kidnapping Migrants as a Tactic of Border Enforcement”
(co-authored with Martina Tazzioli)
Environment & Planning D: Society and Space Volume 38, Number 5 (published online: May 22, 2020)
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PARISS: Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences Volume 1, Number 2 (December 2020)
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in Christine M. Jacobsen, Marry-Anne Karlsen, and Shahram Khosravi (eds.),
Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration (London & New York: Routledge, 2021)​
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“Rebordering ‘the People’: Notes on Theorizing Populism”
SAQ: South Atlantic Quarterly Volume 117, Number 2 (April 2018)
Special thematic issue: “Rethinking Migration and Autonomy from within the ‘Crises’”
* In Spanish: Theorein: Revista de Ciencias Sociales (Quito, Ecuador; 2019)
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