Leslie Bank

Leslie Bank is the Deputy Executive Director of the Economic Performance and Development Unit at the HSRC. He is a specialist in social, economic and historical research and has been involved in project-based and development research for over 20 years. He is an anthropologist by training. He was the recipient of the University of Fort Hare vice chancellor's senior research medal. Previously he received research fellowships from Fulbright, the Ford Foundation and the Oppenheimer Trust to institutions such as Emory, Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He was also a research fellow at the African Studies Centre at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He is currently working on a number of applied projects on urbanization, housing, migration and rural development in South and Southern Africa.

Over the years, he has authored a number of monographs, books and scientific journal articles. His most recent 2017 book is entitled Imonti Modern: Picturing the Life and Times of a South African Location, Cape Town: HSRC Press. His other books include Home Spaces, Street Styles: Contesting Power and Identity in a South African City (Pluto Press, London, 2011) and (with Andrew Bank) Inside African Anthropology: Monica Wilson and her Interpreters (Cambridge University Press, 2013). His new book, Remaking Broken Cities: Universities, Industry and Development on the South African Rust Belt will be published by the HSRC Press in 2018, as well as an edited collection with Nico Cloete on the place making role of universities in South Africa, entitled Anchored in Place: Universities and City Building in South Africa (African Minds, 2018). In is also busy finalizing an edited book with Francis Wilson and Dori Posel on Migrant Labour after Apartheid (HSRC Press, forthcoming). During the last five years, he has published numerous scientific articles and has contributed over 50 op-ed articles to the media on current political and development issues.