Anthropology, Development, Food Security, Conflicts, Forced Migration and Diasporas, Development States & Conflicts, Poverty and income inequalities
Professor Laura Hammond is Pro-Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange and Professor of Development Studies at SOAS. She has been conducting research on conflict, food security, refugees, migration and diasporas in and from the Horn of Africa since the early 1990s. She lived in Ethiopia from 1993-2000, conducting research and working for the UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (the precursor to UNOCHA). Among her research activities, she is PI of the Impact Acceleration Account on Migration, Displacement, Minorities and Marginalisation.
She is also Co-Director of the Work Package on Poverty and Inequalities for the Migration for Development and Equality (MIDEQ) Research Hub on South-South Migration. She is Team Leader of the EU Trust Fund’s Research and Evidence Facility on migration and conflict in the Horn of Africa, and Team Leader of the London International Development Centre’s Migration Leadership Team. She has done consultancy for a wide range of development and humanitarian organisations, including UNDP, USAID, Oxfam, Medécins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the World Food Programme. She is the author of ‘This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia’ (Cornell University Press: 2004); ‘Researching Violence in Africa: Ethical and Methodological Challenges’, editor with Christopher Cramer and Johan Pottier (Brill 2011); ‘Livelihoods and Mobility in the Border Regions of Ethiopia’, Hammond, Laura (2019) in ‘The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy’, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 269-287. and several book and journal articles.
Laura Hammond is an anthropologist (PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison), her research interests include food security, conflict, forced migration and diasporas. She is Challenge Leader for Security, Protracted Conflict, Refugees and Forced Displacement for the Global Challenges Research Fund, Head of the London International Development Centre’s Migration Leadership Team, and Team Leader for the Research and Evidence Facility (Horn of Africa Window) of the European Union Trust Fund for Africa. She also is Chair of the Independent Advisory Group for Country Information. She has worked in the Horn of Africa since 1993 (with a particular emphasis on Ethiopia and Somalia/Somaliland), and has done consultancy for a wide range of development and humanitarian organizations, including UNDP, USAID, Oxfam, Medécins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the World Food Programme. She is the author of This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia (Cornell University Press: 2004), co-editor with Johan Pottier and Christopher Cramer of Researching Violence in Africa: Ethical and Methodological Challenges (Brill: 2011) and many book and journal articles.
