Christiaan Beyers, B.A. (Trent), M.A. (York), D.Phil. (Sussex)
Associate Professor
Director, Human Rights and Global Justice
Department of Global Justice and Development
Trent University
1600 West Bank Drive
Peterborough, Ontario K9J 7B8
Canada
CC K3 office
(705) 748-1011 ext. 5219
Research Interests
Urban land justice and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa; memory, museums, and transitional justice; forced migration and rights; migration governance and xenophobia in Latin America; transnational solidarities; critical theory.
Recent Publications
Journal Articles
Forthcoming. ‘Governing Venezuelan Migration in Ecuador: Regularization and Contested Authority in a Weak State’. (Co-authored with Joshua Low)
2025. ‘Of benches and rubble: The aesthetics of difficult memory in two South African museums’. Memory Studies, 18(4), 1082-1100.
2024. ‘The transnational politics of community: Intervention, solidarity, and resistance’, Espacios Transnacionales: Revista Latinoamericano-Europeo de Pensamiento y Acción Social, No. 21, pp. 16 - 28
2020. ‘Government Through Inaction: The Venezuelan Migratory Crisis in Ecuador.’ Journal of Latin American Studies, 52, 3 (pp. 633-657) (Co-authored with Esteban Nicholls).
2017. ‘Rights struggles over “development”: Land, shelter and citizenship in urban South Africa’. Canadian Journal of Development Studies 38 2 (pp. 234-252).
2017. ‘Preliminary Reflections on Irregular Migration and Assistance Policy in Ecuador’, Espacios Transnacionales: Revista Latinoamericano-Europeo de Pensamiento y Acción Social, 7, 4 (pp. 86-97).
2016. ‘Reconciling Competing Claims to Justice in Urban South Africa: Cato Manor and District Six’, in Special Issue of Journal of Contemporary African Studies, eds. Carolyn Bassett and Marlea Clarke. 34, 2 (pp. 203-220).
2015. ‘After Restitution: Community, Litigation, and Governance inn South African Land Reform’. African Affairs, 114, 56 2015. (pp. 432-454) (co-authored with Derick Fay)
2015. ‘Moral Subjectivity and Affective Deficit in the Transitional State: On Claiming Land in South Africa’. Social Analysis Special Issue: Affective States – Entanglements, Suspensions, Suspicions, eds. Mateusz Laszczkowski and Madeleine Reeves. 59, 4 (pp. 66-82)
2015. ‘Will and communality in Bakhtin, from a Nietzschean Perspective’. Studies in East European Thought, 67, 3-4 (pp. 145-164).
2013. ‘Does Urban Land Restitution Contribute to Transformation in South Africa? Development and Social Citizenship Struggle’. Development and Change, 44, 4 (pp. 965–989).
2012. ‘Land Restitution in Port Elizabeth: Anatomy of a relative success’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 38, 4 (pp. 827-845)
2008. ‘The Contentious Politics of Integrated Urban Development in District Six’. Social Dynamics, Vol 34, 1 (pp. 86-100)
2008. ‘The Cultural Politics of “Community” and Citizenship in the District Six Museum, Cape Town’. Anthropologica Special Issue: Citizenship, Politics and Locality: Anthropological Perspectives (ed. Catherine Neveu) Vol 50, 2 (pp. 359-373)
2007. ‘Land Restitution's “Rights-Communities”: The District Six Case’. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol 33, 2 (pp. 267-286)
2007. ‘Mobilizing “community” for justice in District Six: Stakeholder politics early in the land restitution process’. South African Historical Journal, 58. (pp. 253-276)
Book Chapters
2022. ‘The community for which the land longs: Cape Town’s District Six Museum’, Critical Topography: Word and Image Album, eds. by Jonathan Bordo and Blake Fitzpatrick. McGill-Queens University Press (pp. 213-230).
2020. “La migración como encuentro”, in Desencuentros entre Disciplinas y Mundos, eds. Leticia Briseño, Johannes Kniffki, and Christian Reutlinger. Berlin: Frank & Timme. (pp. 209-228)
2015. ‘Law and Political Conflict in South African Land Reform’, in Domains of Freedom: Justice, Citizenship and Social Change in South Africa, eds. Thembela Kepe, Bettina von Lieres and Melissa Levin, University of Cape Town Press. (co-authored with Derick Fay)
2016. ‘En los márgenes del Estado: El caso de los refugiados colombianos en Ecuador’, in El Trabajo Social desde miradas transnacionales – Experiencias empíricas y conceptuales, [‘In the margins of the State: The case of Colombian refugees in Ecuador’, in Transnational Social Work – Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives]. eds. Johannes Kniffki / Christian Reutlinger. Berlin: Frank and Timme.
2013. ‘The “book of us”: Will and community in South African land restitution’ Evidence and Testimony in Life Story Narratives, eds. Nanci Adler and Selma Leydesdorff. Transaction Publishers-Rutgers University (pp. 177-198)
2010. ‘Acrimonious Stakeholder Politics: Reconciliation and Redevelopment in District Six’. In Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Restitution in South Africa, eds. Cherryl Walker, Anna Bohlin, Ruth Hall, Thembela Kepe. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (pp. 143-162)
2009. ‘Identity and Forced Displacement: Community and Colouredness in District Six’. In Burdened By Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa, ed. Mohamed Adhikari, University of Cape Town Press (pp.79-103)
2008. ‘The Will-to-Community: Between Loss and Reclamation in Cape Town’. In 'Restoring What Was Ours': The Rights and Wrongs of Land Restitution, eds. Deborah James and Derick Fay, Routledge Law and Society Series / Glasshouse books (pp. 141-162)
Books and Edited Volumes
2011. Let’s Face It: Writings and Artwork from PARC, Toronto: Mosaic Press. Co-edited with Hume Cronyn. Toronto: Mosaic Press
Current Courses
HURI 2005H – Law, Conflict and Violence
GDS 2001H – Global Justice, Decolonization, and Development
GDS 3001H – Development, Political Struggle and Social Transformation
HURI 4750H – Ethnicity, Political Conflict, and Genocide