Dr Leah Koskimaki

Coordinator for MMICA
Institute for Social Development

Contact: lkoskimaki@uwc.ac.za

Leah Koskimaki is the Coordinator and founding member of MMICA, the Migration and Mobilities Interdisciplinary Collective in Africa, and is also Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Social Development (ISD) at the University of the Western Cape. She received her PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington in Seattle.  Her current research interests include urban migrant and refugee precarity, migrant solidarity, and youth politics and aspirations. She has also conducted research on migrant transnationalism and diaspora philanthropy.  Her current ethnographic research project, examines precarity, temporality, and religious and social solidarity for contemporary South Asian migrants in Cape Town.

Dr Koskimaki has conducted extensive ethnographic and archival research with a Fulbright-Hays DDRA fellowship in small towns in Uttarakhand, India on the intersection between regional mobilities, development aspirations and youth politics. She also was a Research Fellow for an NWO-WOTRO funded project titled, “Provincial Globalisation: The Impact of Reverse Transnational Flows in India’s Regional Towns” at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru, India, affiliated with the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). For this research she examined the influence of diaspora philanthropy, migrant contributions, and political transnationalism on rural and small-town development in South India.

Dr Koskimaki is part of a partnership project, “Urban Sanctuary, Migrant Solidarity and Hospitality in Global Perspective” on policies and practices of accommodating vulnerable and precarious migrants and refugees in major urban centres, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She also a team member of the African Academy of Migration Research (AAMR), which aims to build the research capacity of the next generation of African migration scholars. 

Relevant Publications 

1. Mbatha, N., & Koskimaki, L. (2023). Making life liveable in an informal market: Infrastructures of friendship amongst migrant street traders in Durban, South Africa. Migration and Society, 6(1), 43-56.
2. Mbatha, N., & Koskimaki, L. (2021). No time to relax: Waithood and work of young migrant street traders in Durban, South Africa. Social Dynamics, 47(3), 422-438.
3. Koskimaki, L. (2019). Regional charisma: The making of a student leader in a Himalayan hill town. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, (22).
4. Upadhya, C., Rutten, M., & Koskimaki, L. Eds. (2018). Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics. New York, Oxford: Routledge.
5. Koskimaki, L. (2018). “From Agrarian Landlords to Transnational Entrepreneurs: Reconfiguring Political Influence in Coastal South India.” Pp. 142-161 in Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics. New York, Oxford: Routledge.
6. Koskimaki, L & Upadhya, C. (2018) “Introduction: Transregional Flows and Provincial Transitions in India.” Pp. 1-23 in Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics. New York, Oxford: Routledge.
7. Mustafi, S. & Koskimaki, L. (2018). Development destinations and networked dreams: Transnational giving in Dakshina Kannada. Pp. 105-122 in Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics. New York, Oxford: Routledge.
8. Koskimaki, L. (2017). Youth futures and a masculine development ethos in the regional story of Uttarakhand. Journal of South Asian Development, 12(2), 136-154.
9. Koskimaki, L., & Upadhya, C. (2017). Introduction: Reconsidering the region in India: Mobilities, actors and development politics. Journal of South Asian Development, 12(2), 89-111.