Phillan Zamchiya

Dr Phillan Zamchiya is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in International Development from the University of Oxford. He also currently serves on the editorial advisory board of Oxford Development Studies and the Journal of Southern African Studies.

Previously, Zamchiya was a research fellow at the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom where he taught on the Master of Philosophy programme in Development Studies. His academic interests are twofold: he studies contemporary trajectories of land and agrarian change in Southern Africa and the politics of post-colonial African states in democratic transitions. He has more than a decade experience in conducting field-based research and working with progressive civil society and feminist organisations in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, Namibia and Zambia.

Zamchiya is the convener of the ‘Political Economy of Land and Agrarian Reform in Southern Africa’ module and supervises MPhil and PhD candidates. Zamchiya is also a creative scholar whose latest informative documentary is: ‘All we have comes
from the land. Women’s struggle for customary land rights’.

Land redistribution projects and wider impacts on poverty and inequality in South Africa

• DPhil in Development Studies, University of Oxford
• MPhil in Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape
• BSc Hons in Politics and Administration, University of Zimbabwe