Liz Fouksman

Dr Liz Fouksman is a Lecturer in Social Justice at King's College London's School of Education, Communication and Society, affiliated with the Centre for Public Policy Research. She holds a DPhil in International Development from the University of Oxford and has held research fellowships at Oxford, Harvard, and the University of the Witwatersrand. Her work explores moral, social, and cultural attachments to work in contexts of high unemployment and inequality, focusing on South Africa and Namibia. Key themes include the future of labour in automated economies, universal basic income (UBI), and the role of social protection mechanisms. She also investigates civil society networks linking grassroots environmental projects to global policy agendas.

• Education: DPhil in International Development (University of Oxford)
• Research Fellowships: Leverhulme Trust, Berggruen Institute, Ford Foundation

Her research challenges assumptions about work's centrality in welfare systems, emphasizing how unemployed communities conceptualize time, income, and labor. She critiques proposals like UBI through comparative studies between Global North and South. Past work analyzed environmental knowledge networks among NGOs and activists in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan.

Awards include prestigious fellowships from institutions like the Leverhulme Trust and the Ford Foundation. She actively supervises PhD students exploring work ethics, welfare policy, and distributive justice.

Liz contributes to public discourse through articles on topics like economic security and the future of work. She lectures widely, including talks on South African social protection systems and moral logics of redistribution. Her work bridges academia and activism, informing policy debates on global inequality and labor transformations.