Jo Vearey
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Jo Vearey is a Professor and the Director of the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. She holds an Honorary Fellowship with the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, and a Senior Fellowship at the Centre for Peace, Development and Democracy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In 2015, Jo was awarded a Humanities and Social Science Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. Jo holds a MSc in the Control of Infectious Diseases (LSHTM, 2003), a PhD in Public Health (Wits, 2010), and has been rated by the National Research Foundation as a Young Researcher. In 2014 and 2015, Jo received a Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for outstanding young researchers. She was a Marie Curie Research Fellow in 2013, at the UNESCO Chair on Social and Spatial Inclusion of Migrants, University of Venice (SSIM-IUAV), Venice, Italy.
With a commitment to social justice and the development of pro-poor policy responses, Jo’s research explores international, regional, national and local responses to migration, health, and urban vulnerabilities. Her research interests focus on urban health, public health, migration and health, the social determinants of health, HIV, informal settlements and sex work. Jo is particularly interested in knowledge production, dissemination and utilisation including the use of visual and arts-based methodologies.
Jo has a range of international collaborations, including an ESRC-NRF funded project with the University of Edinburgh, a WOTRO funded project with the VU University, Amsterdam on migration and sex work, and partnerships with the University of Massachusetts Boston and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine‘s Faculty of Public Health and Policy and Gender, Violence and Health Unit.
Posts by Author
Wits to co-lead international research on migration and health
ACMS/maHp’s Prof. Jo Vearey has been named as one of the co-leads of the Cluster of Excellence in Migration and Health (CEMH), a new research area under a partnership by ARUA and The Guild.
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Third Global Consultation on the Health of Refugees and Migrants
The 3rd Global Consultation on Refugee and Migrant Health began in Rabat (Morocco) yesterday.
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Migration and Health in the WHO-Afro Region: A Scoping Review
This scoping review has been undertaken in order to improve understanding of the state of knowledge in the field of migration and health in the WHO-AFRO region.
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WEBINAR: Impact of Covid-19 on migrants
On 4 April, the IOM and MMC second webinar on the ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Migrants’ explored how the pandemic affected migration dynamics in East Africa. ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey was one of the speakers. Watch the video and download the slides here.
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Turning up the heat: A conceptual model for understanding the migration and health in the context of global climate change
ACMS/maHp’s Professor Jo Vearey contributes towards the development of a conceptual model for understanding migration and health in the context of global climate change. Read and download the full paper here.
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PODCAST: Vaccination of undocumented migrants
Human rights groups and activists are calling on the country’s acting Minister of Health Mmamoloko Kubayi to follow international guidelines by making sure that the Covid-19 vaccination programme is inclusive. ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey has added her voice to the call. Find out why this is important by listening to her SAfm interview here.
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TV INTERVIEW: Jabs for asylum seekers and undocumented migrants
African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) director Professor Jo Vearey was recently (27 July 2021) interviewed by eNCA about the call by local scholars, community leaders and activists for the South African government to include undocumented persons in the country’s Covid-19 vaccine roll-out strategy. Watch her interview here.
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PODCAST: Calls for Covid-19 vaccination of undocumented
Experts call on the government to address the vaccination of undocumented persons. African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) director Professor Jo Vearey adds her voice to this call. Listen to her interview on the SAfm Sunrise radio show from earlier this week (28 July 2021).
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TV INTERVIEW: Vaccination of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers
Leaders of social, legal, and academic organisations have come together to call on the South African government to leave no one behind when it comes to the Covid-19 vaccination. The concern is that undocumented migrants are not able to access it. Director of the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) Professor Jo Vearey was recently (on 27 July 2021) interviewed by SABC News about this. Watch the news insert here:
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OP-ED: Leave No One Behind: We must urgently address vaccination of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers
South Africa’s civil society and the research community call on Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi to do the right thing and follow international guidelines to ensure the Covid-19 vaccination programme is inclusive.
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The call for vaccines for undocumented migrants
Earlier this week Lester Kiewit of Cape Talk’s ‘The Morning Review’ show spoke to Professor Jo Vearey about the call for Covid-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants.
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PRESENTATION: The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on migrants and migration in South Africa
Last week, African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS, Wits University) director Professor Jo Vearey presented at this Department of Statistics South Africa webinar on ‘The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on migrants and migration in South Africa’. See her presentation here.
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WEBINAR INVITE: Present And Imminent: Crises And Complexity In Mexico And South Africa
maHp/ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey will be taking part in this South-South dialogue titled ‘Present and Imminent: Crises and Complexity in Mexico and South Africa’, organised by UNAM-Sudáfrica Centro de Estudios Mexicanos.
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VIDEO: Building capacity for research on migration and health
maHp/ACMS director, Professor Jo Vearey recently presented at the 6th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research panel session on ‘Building capacity for research on migration and health: A call to action’. Watch her presentation here.
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Refugees and migrants are vulnerable to ‘vaccine nationalism’ as host nations put their own citizens first
African Center for Migration and Society (ACMS) director, Professor Jo Vearey was recently quoted in this Thomson Reuters Foundation New’s article expressing her concern over possible “formal or de facto discrimination against undocumented migrants when it comes to vaccine access”.
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OP-ED: Vaccine nationalism and migration: Implications for the (mis)management of Covid-19 in South Africa
As countries begin to roll out Covid-19 vaccination programmes, maHp/ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey argues there is no place for ‘vaccine nationalism’; that the principle of equity in global health access must be at the fore.
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VIDEO: How the governments can deal with immigration during the Covid-19 pandemic?
maHp/ACMS Associate Professor Jo Vearey recently appeared on Newzroom Afrika urging African governments to deal with immigration during the Covid-19 pandemic collaboratively.
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PODCAST: Bietbridge humanitarian crisis
On the Beitbridge border posts hundreds of Zimbabweans have been captured waiting for days in the line to escape the thirty day hard lockdown that was recently implemented. maHp/ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey spoke to Channel Africa about this humanitarian crises.
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OP-ED: Drones, dinghies and an army helicopter – why the state’s new toys won’t help South Africa’s response to Covid-19
According to CMS/maHp director Jo Vearey, Sally Gandar, Rebecca Walker and Francois Venter, the government’s decision to focus on tracking, detaining and deporting migrants as they cross into South Africa is at the expense of the many systemic challenges faced in accessing documentation – including Covid certificates.
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Statement on Covid-19 and Migration Governance in Africa
Associate Professor Jo Vearey recently presented at the 67th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). Watch and read the full submission here.
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PODCAST: Why are migrants being excluded from SA’s response to Covid-19?
ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey chats to Radio 702’s Eusebius McKaiser.
Read more PODCAST: African Dialogue, Effects of Covid-19 on Migration
ACMS director, Associate Professor Jo Vearey discusses the effects of Covid-19 on migration, on Channel Africa.
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VIDEO: Coronavirus amid a vulnerable populace
Last night (14 April 2020) ACMS Professor Jo Vearey was interviewed by Godfred Akoto Boafo of Citi TV’s current affairs show ‘Face to Face’, about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on migrants.
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OP-ED: Why xenophobia is bad for the health of all in South Africa
South Africa mustn’t forget the public — and that includes migrants and refugees — in its public health response to COVID-19, writes ACMS director, Associate Professor Jo Vearey.
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OP-ED: Border walls don’t stop viruses. But this might
Both the United States and South Africa have punted increased border security as a way to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Here’s why South Africa should be thinking less about walls and more about amnesty as cases mount.
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OP-ED: Foreign migrants must be included in Covid-19 response
International solidarity, travel restrictions and the right to remain: why South Africa needs to actively engage all foreign migrants in its response to Covid-19.
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PODCAST: Winter is coming
ACMS director, Associate Professor Jo Vearey discusses South Africa’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic on the ‘Monday Morning Meetings on Migration’ show.
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OP-ED: Hypocrisy in the time of Covid-19
ACMS director, Associate Professor Jo Vearey explains how the sanctimony of moving from blaming foreign migrants to now rendering them invisible in a critical public health moment will have implications for our response to Covid-19.
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VIDEO: Unfiltered: Coronavirus
ACMS Associate Professor Jo Vearey was recently part of an interview panel on the SABC News Unfiltered talk show that discussed migration and Covid-19 in South Africa.
Read more PODCAST: Migration in Africa
ACMS director Associate Professor Jo Vearey discusses migration in Africa on Channel Africa’s ‘African Dialogue’ show.
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Just Research? (Un)Seeing Politics in a Complex World
The third post of ‘The Disorder of Things’ blog symposium on Sophie Harman’s ‘Seeing Politics’ is by maHp/ACMS director Jo Vearey.
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Building alliances for the global governance of migration and health
Health governance has an important role in dealing with global migration, argue maHp/ ACMS director Jo Vearey and colleagues.
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Urban health in Africa: A critical global public health priority
This paper argues that a focus on urban health in Africa is urgently required in order to support progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other global and regional public health targets, including Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the new Urban Agenda, and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
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Urban Health in Johannesburg: Migration, Exclusion and Inequality
In this issue, insights into how migration and mobility are mediating health within an African urban context are brought together.
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PODCAST: Vearey responds to Motsoaledi’s comment about ‘foreign nationals’ overcrowding SA’s health system
BBC World Service asks Associate Professor Jo Vearey to respond to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s comment about ‘foreign nationals’ overcrowding SA’s public health system.
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PODCAST: Are foreigners affecting our healthcare?
Associate Professor Jo Vearey of the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS, Wits University) discusses whether foreigners are really affecting South Africa’s public healthcare system on 702’s ‘The Best of Afternoon Drive with Joanne Joseph’. Listen to their interview below:
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Multisectoral (in)action: towards effective mainstreaming of HIV in public sector departments in South Africa
The authors of this paper reflect on progress made in mainstreaming HIV in non-health sector departments, exploring factors that have enabled and hindered the process.
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Securing Borders: The danger of blurring global migration governance and health security agendas in Southern Africa
This paper explores the potential risks associated with the blurring of global migration governance and health security agendas in Southern Africa, a region associated with high levels of population mobility, communicable, and – increasingly – non-communicable diseases.
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Migration and health: a global public health research priority
Drawing on discussions with policy makers, research scholars, civil society, and United Nations agencies that attended the 2nd Global Consultation on Migration and Health – held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in February 2017 – the authors emphasize the urgent need for quality research on international and domestic (in-country) migration and health to support efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Connecting the Dots: Cultivating a Sustainable Interdisciplinary Discourse Around Migration, Urbanisation, and Health in Southern Africa
This chapter describes the authors’ experiences in connecting a group of emerging Southern African scholars around the inherently interdisciplinary field of migration, urbanisation and health.
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