I am a Senior Scientist and PI of the project Inhabiting Climate Change: Re-Locative Practices and Politics in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Prior to joining UZH, I was the Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Basel, where I chaired the Pedagogy Committee and coordinated the MA in Critical Urbanisms. I am the author of the book Worlding Home: An Urban Ethnography of Peacekeeping Camps in Goma, DRC published by Indiana University Press in 2025. In 2022, I was a Visiting Fellow at the Chair of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Before beginning an academic career in Switzerland, I worked as a Research Associate for the Institute for International Urban Development (I2UD), a not-for-profit institution dedicated to improving urban environments for vulnerable communities by providing research on spatial development issues, advisory services to city leaders, and urban planning education programs. With colleagues at I2UD, I co-authored numerous policy and research reports for the World Bank, UN-Habitat, IOM, and the International Institute for Environment and Development. I have held various consultant positions with the OECD, the UNESCO-based International Association of Universities, and Co-PLAN Institute for Habitat Development.

I have a PhD in Social Anthropology and Urban Studies from the University of Basel; an MSc from Sciences Po Paris in Urban Governance, Policy and Planning; and a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science and International Studies with a Certificate in African Studies.

I am an urban anthropologist and theorist who combines methods in ethnography and critical geography to explore the place-personhood relationships and lived experiences of people who experience different kinds of displacements and relocations on the African continent. My current research project examines urban fisherfolks’ lived experiences of climate re-location and interrogates how re-location unfolds and is practiced on a day-to-day basis by various institutional actors in Saint Louis, Senegal. I also continue to write and think with members of the Sustainable Housing in Urban Humanitarian Crises project [Spirit Grant, Swiss National Science Foundation].

Past Projects

• 2023-2024: Resettlement, Dwelling, and Urbanization in Secondary African Cities: Extractive Displacement in Tanga, Tanzania and Climate Refuge in Saint-Louis, Senegal [University of Basel Research Fund for Excellent Junior Scholars & Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft (FAG) Basel]
• 2020-2022: Making Infrastructure Global? Design and Governance of Infrastructural Expansion in the Global South [EUCOR Seed Money Grant]
• 2016-2020: Making the City: Agency, Urbanity and Urbanisation in Ordinary Cities [Swiss National Science Foundation]

In Fall 2026, I am teaching GEO 722 Transborder Urbanism at the University of Zurich.

At the University of Basel from 2020 to 2026, I convened and taught course courses for MA and PhD students on interdisciplinary methods in urban studies, theory in urban studies, emergency urbanism, and the settlement typology of the camp. In 2024 and 2025, I coordinated the Urbanism across Geographies study track in Kenya and its corollary, collaborative research project Lamufutures, which brought together student researchers from the University of Basel and the Lamu Youth Alliance. I continue to supervise MA students as Affiliated Faculty at Urban Studies, University of Basel.

My teaching philosophy is underpinned by playful pedagogies and collaborative rigor in both instruction and learning.

Books

Larsen, M. (2025). Worlding Home: An Urban Ethnography of Peacekeeping Camps in Goma, DRC. Indiana University Press.  https://iupress.org/9780253074485/worlding-home/

Book Chapters

Larsen, M. (forthcoming). “Exsiccating the City” In Amer, Q, Candeo, J., Ceola, F., and Misselwitz, P. (Eds.) Spatialities of Displacement in Times of Climate Change. JOVIS. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/isbn/9783986123215/html

Larsen, M. (2022). Worlding Goma. In Cupers, K., Oldfield, S., Herz, M., Nkula-Wenz, L, Distretti, E., Perret, M. (eds.) What is Critical Urbanisms? Zurich: Park Books, pp. 94-99.  https://www.park-books.com/produkt/what-is-critical-urbanism/121

Larsen, M. (2012). Xool nu bu baax: Hip-hop, Youth Movements and Change in Senegal. In Herzer, L. (ed.) Changing Cities: Climate, Youth, and Land Markets in Urban Areas. Washington DC: Wilson Center Comparative Urban Studies Project and USAID, pp. 41-56. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/changing_cities_climate_youth_land_markets.pdf

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Larsen, M. (2025). “Peace-kept” Urbanism: Ephemerality and Endurance in Eastern DRC. Urban Studies, 62(11), 2293-2308. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241308111 *First Runner-Up, Urban Studies Best Article Prize 2025

Nkula-Wenz, L. and Larsen, M. (2024). Academic Freedom Across Geographies: The (Im)possibilities of Critical Urban Scholarship in Plausibly Genocidal Times. Geographica Helevetica. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-253-2024

Larsen, M., Schuetze, B., Jenss, A, and Cupers, K. (2024) Elsewheres of the Unbuilt: The Global Effects of Transnational Energy Infrastructure Projects. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13265

Book Reviews

Larsen, M. (2026). The Police, the State and the Congo Cop: by Michel Thill, London, Bloomsbury, 2025, 216 pp. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2026.2638020

Larsen, M. (2024). Concrete city: material flows and urbanization in West Africa: by Armelle Choplin, New York, Wiley, 2023, 240 pp., US$35 (paperback). Planning Perspectives, 39(1), 210–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2023.2295720

Research Reports and Policy Papers

Serageldin, M., Larsen, M., Vigier, F. and Charles, L. (2017). National Urban Policy: Arab States Report. UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya. https://unhabitat.org/national-urban-policy-arab-states-report

Serageldin, M., Larsen, M., Summers, B., and Vigier, F. (2017). Habitat III Regional Report Arab Region: Towards inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable Arab Cities. Prepared for the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (HABITAT III). UN-Habitat ROAS and UN-ESCWA.  https://habitat3.org/documents-and-archive/preparatory-documents/regional-reports/

Larsen, M., Demir, E. and Horvat, M. (2016). Humanitarian responses by local actors: Lessons learned from managing the transit of migrants and refugees through Croatia. IIED, London. https://www.iied.org/10795iied

Larsen, M., Demir, E. and Horvat, M. (2016). Migrant and refugee transit: the role of local authorities in humanitarian response. IIED, London.  https://www.iied.org/17371iied

Larsen, M., Demir, E. and Horvat, M. (2016). Tranzit migranata i izbjeglica: uloga lokalnih vlasti u. IIED, London. https://www.iied.org/hr/17371CRIIED

Serageldin, M., Gobar, S., Hagist, W., Larsen, M. (2016). Inclusive Cities and Access to Land, Housing, and Services in Developing Countries. Urban Development Series Knowledge Papers; No. 22. World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24036

Driscoll, J. Larsen, M. Shutina, D., Ciro, A. (2015). Marginalized Groups in ICT-enabled Governance. In UN-HABITAT and FUPOL (Ed.) E-Governance and Urban Policy Design in Developing Countries. https://issuu.com/unhabitat/docs/e-governance_and_urban_policy_desig

Serageldin, M., Vigier, F., Larsen, M. (2015). Urban Migration Trends in the MENA Region and the Challenge of Conflict Induced Displacement. Background Paper for the World Migration Report 2015: Migrants and Cities: New Partnerships to Manage Mobility, International Organization for Migration.  https://www.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl486/files/2018-07/WMR-2015-Background-Paper-MSerageldin-FVigier-MLarsen.pdf

As Contributing Author

World Bank Group. (2018). Social Sustainability and Citizen Engagement: Urban Partnership Program II - Cities for the People: Making Collaborative Governance Happen (English). Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/389721525949103126/pdf/SSCE-Booklet-2-5-2018.pdf

OECD. (2014). The Competitiveness of Global Port-Cities. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264205277-en

Public Scholarship and Outreach

Larsen, M. (2025). lamufutures.net. Author of “Punda Pedagogy,” “Translation,” “Remuneration,” and “Care.” Content Editor 2024-2026.

Larsen, M. and Landolt, S. (Eds.) (2020). Geographies of COVID-19. GeoAgenda 4/2020. https://scnat.ch/en/uuid/i/64a5e800-31c5-5ff5-a9f2-9b793d1a4b50-GeoAgenda_No._42020

Larsen, M. (2020). “Pandemic Agendas in Swiss Geography” In GeoAgenda 4/2020, 4-5. Available at: https://scnat.ch/en/uuid/i/64a5e800-31c5-5ff5-a9f2-9b793d1a4b50-GeoAgenda_No._42020

Larsen, M. (2020). The Exceptionally Ordinary Spaces of Peacekeeping Camps. What is Critical Urbanisms? Exhibition. 3-D Poster. Kollegienhaus, University of Basel, Fall 2020.

Larsen, M. (2016). Responding to transit refugees in Croatia. Insight. IIED, London. https://www.iied.org/responding-transit-refugees-croatia