Maren Larsen is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Basel. She coordinates the Masters program in Critical Urbanisms, chairs its Pedagogy Committee, and convenes core courses on interdisciplinary methods in urban research, theory in urban studies, emergency urbanism, and the settlement typology of the camp as an urban space. Her postdoctoral research project “Resettlement, Dwelling, and Urbanization in Secondary African Cities” (Forschungsfonds Nachwuchsforschende and Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft., 2023-2024) explores the lived experiences of people experiencing planned re-location projects linked to oil extraction and sea level rise in Tanga (Tanzania) and Saint-Louis (Senegal), respectively.

Prior to joining the faculty, Maren was writing her doctoral dissertation at Urban Studies and Social Anthropology titled “Worlding Home,” which looks at the architectures and lifeworlds of peacekeeping camps (bases occupied by UN contingent troops of MONUSCO) in Goma (Democratic Republic of the Congo). From these storied spaces, she develops an analytic of camping that re-opens the contingencies and politics of inhabitation amidst dislocation. Her manuscript based on the dissertation will be published with Indiana University Press in 2025.

Prior to joining the Urban Studies at the University of Basel, Maren worked as a Research Associate for the Institute for International Urban Development (I2UD) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). Established in 2005, the Institute regrouped the academics and professionals who created and ran the Center for Urban Development Studies at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design from 1987 to 2005. Maren participated in and led multiple technical assistance, capacity building, and urban research projects around topics of municipal development planning, resilience building, and enhancing citizen engagement across the Global South and East. She has held consultant positions with the OECD and the UNESCO-based International Association of Universities, and has co-authored numerous policy and research reports for the World Bank, UN-Habitat, IOM, and the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Maren holds a B.A. with honors in the liberal arts from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with majors in International Studies and Political Science and a certificate in African Studies. She graduated summa cum laude from Sciences Po Paris in 2013 with an M.Sc. from the Urban School (Master: Governing the Large Metropolis).