Dr Julien Migozzi

Real estate platforms and racial capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa

Funding period: 1 September 2022 – 31 August 2025
Type of funding: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Julien Migozzi is a USF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. As an urban and economic geographer, his research interests lie at the intersection of urban studies and financial geography, to understand how cities and markets become increasingly mediated by digital technologies. He uses mixed-methods that combine computational tools with mapping and in-depth fieldwork.

His current project investigates how real estate platforms unfold across racialized and unequal market structures in post-apartheid South Africa, in order to analyse how digital devices unevenly reshape the mechanisms through which housing is accessed, valued, transacted, financed and managed. The project further investigates how local real estate markets are being further integrated within global financial networks and computing infrastructures through the datafication and classification of neighbourhoods, housing and urban dwellers. Finally, using network, textual and spatial analysis, the project analyses how real estate technologies affect the evolution of urban segregation and racial inequalities, through case studies in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Profile | @JulienMigozzi | Email: julien.migozzi@ouce.ox.ac.uk