Biography
Dr Liz Fouksman is a Lecturer (equivalent Assistant Professor) in Social Justice at the Centre for Public Policy Research in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King's College London. She is also a research associate of the University of Oxford and the University of the Witwatersrand.
Liz has a DPhil in International Development from the University of Oxford, and has held research fellowships from the Leverhulme Trust, the Berggruen Institute and the Ford Foundation at (respectively) the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of the Witwatersrand.
Research
Liz's research focuses on understanding moral, social and cultural attachments to work and working. It looks at the impediment such attachments pose to new imaginaries of the future of labour and distribution in an increasingly automated world. In particular, Liz focuses on the ways the long-term unemployed in countries with high inequality and unempoyment rates think about links between time-use, work, and income. The research project looks to fieldwork in South Africa and Namibia to ask how such links challenge both proposals to expand social protection through means such as unconditional cash transfers, as well as more radical calls for the decommodification of labor via mechanisms such as a universal basic income guarantee and/or shorter working hours. Liz also does action-research with the global movement around universal basic income guarantees (UBI), and complements research in southern Africa with comparative case studies in the Global North.
Dr Fouksman's past research has also examined the way networks of development organizations (foundations, NGOs and grassroots activists) create civil society knowledge networks that produce, spread and dispute ideas, in particular environmental ideas, from the grassroots to the global and back again. This project focused on two multi-sited case studies, each with a global foundation (one in the USA, the other in Switzerland) funding in-country NGOs (in Kenya and in Kyrgyzstan respectively), which in turn support pastoralist communities in enacting ecologically-focused projects.
Recent papers include:
- The moral economy of work: Demanding jobs and deserving money in South Africa. Economy and Society, 49:2, 287-311. 2020.
- Labour, laziness and distribution: Work imaginaries among the South African unemployed (co-authored with H. J. Dawson, equal contribution). Africa, 90(2): 229-51. 2020.
- Radical transformation or technological intervention? Two paths for universal basic income (with E. Klein, equal contribution). 2019. World Development 122: 492-500.
Liz also writes popular press articles on topics including the future of work, the cost of basic income, South African social policy and economic security.
PhD supervision
Liz is happy to supervise PhD projects connected to work and labour, or welfare policy, cash transfers, inequality and distributory justice.
Research
Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR)
The Centre for Public Policy Research is an interdisciplinary research centre research developing critical analyses of social change and social in/justice in education and other policy arenas, sectors and contexts to inform national and international policy debate, social activism, and personal, professional and organisational learning.
News
Why does global poverty exist and could we share wealth more evenly?
New podcast episode looks at levels and causes of global poverty and whether universal basic income schemes offer a way to address it.
Events
Transnational advocacy in the digital era
This event will see Nina Hall discuss her new book, which explores the role of digital advocacy organisations - a major new addition to the international arena.
Please note: this event has passed.
Who deserves social protection? Moral grammars of universalism, cash and (re)distribution in South Africa
A talk by Dr Liz Fouksman on her research into social protection and moral grammars of universalism, cash and (re)distribution in South Africa.
Please note: this event has passed.
What is rightful? Moral logics of distribution, work and deservingness among the southern African unemployed
Dr Liz Fouksman explores distribution, work and deservingness among the southern African unemployed.
Please note: this event has passed.
Features
Must-reads in education, communication and social sciences
The School of Education, Communication & Society at King’s College London houses research from a range of different fields – from linguistics to education...
Work as we knew it has changed. Time to think beyond the wage
Dr Fouksman and her two co-authors discuss the need to rethink wage employment.
Research
Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR)
The Centre for Public Policy Research is an interdisciplinary research centre research developing critical analyses of social change and social in/justice in education and other policy arenas, sectors and contexts to inform national and international policy debate, social activism, and personal, professional and organisational learning.
News
Why does global poverty exist and could we share wealth more evenly?
New podcast episode looks at levels and causes of global poverty and whether universal basic income schemes offer a way to address it.
Events
Transnational advocacy in the digital era
This event will see Nina Hall discuss her new book, which explores the role of digital advocacy organisations - a major new addition to the international arena.
Please note: this event has passed.
Who deserves social protection? Moral grammars of universalism, cash and (re)distribution in South Africa
A talk by Dr Liz Fouksman on her research into social protection and moral grammars of universalism, cash and (re)distribution in South Africa.
Please note: this event has passed.
What is rightful? Moral logics of distribution, work and deservingness among the southern African unemployed
Dr Liz Fouksman explores distribution, work and deservingness among the southern African unemployed.
Please note: this event has passed.
Features
Must-reads in education, communication and social sciences
The School of Education, Communication & Society at King’s College London houses research from a range of different fields – from linguistics to education...
Work as we knew it has changed. Time to think beyond the wage
Dr Fouksman and her two co-authors discuss the need to rethink wage employment.