René Kreichauf

René Kreichauf is FWO Senior Postdoc Fellow at BRISPO and Assistant Professor in Urban Studies and Planning at Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. From January to December 2026, he joins Harvard University as a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow. René received a Doctor of Sciences in Geography (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (Freie Universtität Berlin). He has been holding appointments as visiting researcher, professor, and guest lecturer at the Graduate Center of the City University New York, Rutgers University, The New School, and New York University. His research and teaching topics include displacement, urban migration governance, migrant activism and protest, state violence, and racial capitalism. His article “From Forced Migration to Forced Arrival: the Campization of Asylum Accommodation in European Cities” (Comparative Migration Studies) received the Rinus Penninx Best Paper Award. He co-edited the book Displacement, Asylum and the City. Understanding Migration Processes through Urban Studies Approaches (Routledge, 2023).

Research keywords: migration, displacement, racial capitalism, state violence, racialization, camps, housing, asylum