Lochner Marais is a Professor of Development Studies at the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State (UFS). He is also an honorary professor at the Sustainable Minerals Institute (University of Queensland, Australia). He serves on the editorial board of Habitat International and serves on the advisory boards for Housing Studies, International Journal of Housing Policy and Housing and the Built Environment. His research interests include housing policy, small cities and towns (mining and renewable towns and cities) and public health focusing on children. In addition to concentrating on these themes separately, he focuses on integrating them. He has also co-edited nine books and his monograph "The social impacts of mine closure in South Africa" (published by Routledge) has appeared in 2023. He is also the executive editor of the newly established journal of Cambridge University Press: Research Directions: Mine Closure and Transitions. Over the past ten years, he has been a collaborator, principal investigator or co-principal investigator for international research grants of approximately R40 million. He is passionate about creating and managing interdisciplinary projects and prefers research focusing on real-world problems in housing policy, mine-community relations, mine closure and urban health. The main contribution of his work has been to improve the understanding of the social consequences of mine closure, mining’s role in creating place attachment and the relationship between mine closure and social disruption. He has also been the first researcher to link mine closure and social disruption.
GOOGLE SCHOLAR PROFILE: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WL9d-lIAAAAJ&hl=en
RESEARCHGATE PROFILE: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lochner-Marais
LOOP PROFILE: https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/1256713/overview
Books
Matebesi, S., Marais, L. and Nel, V. (Eds), 2024 (contract signed). Local Responses to Mine Closure in South Africa: Dependencies and Social Disruption. London: Routledge.
Van Assche, K., Gruesmacher, M., Marais, L., Perez Sindin-Lopez, Z., 2024 (in production). Resource Communities: Past legacies and Future Pathways. London: Routledge.
Marais, L., 2023. The Social Impacts of Mine Closure in South Africa: Housing Policy and Place Attachment. London: Routledge.
Marais, L., Burger, P., Campbell, M., Denoon-Stevens, S., and Van Rooyen, D. (Eds), 2022. Coal and Energy in South Africa. Considering a Just Transition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Sharp, C., and Marais, L. (Eds), 2022. Growing up Resilient: The Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers. London: Routledge.
Marais, L., Campbell, M., Denoon-Stevens, S. and Van Rooyen, D. (Eds), 2021. Mining and Community in the South African Platinum Belt: A Decade after Marikana. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Marais, L., and Nel, V. (Eds)., 2019. Space and Planning in Secondary Cities: Reflections from South Africa. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media.
Marais, L., Burger, P., and van Rooyen, D. (Eds)., 2018. Community and Mining in South Africa: from Small Town to Iron Town. London: Routledge.
Marais, L., Nel, E., and Donaldson, R. (Eds)., 2016. Secondary Cities and Development. London: Routledge.
Donaldson, R., and Marais, L. (Eds)., 2012. Small Town Geographies in Africa: Experiences from South Africa and Elsewhere. New York: Nova Publishers.
Marais, L., and Visser, G. (Eds)., 2008. Spatialities of Urban Change. Selected Themes from Bloemfontein at the beginning of the 21st century. Stellenbosch: Sun Press.
Donaldson, R., and Marais, L. (Eds)., 2002. Transforming Rural and Urban Spaces in South Africa during the 1990s: Reform, Restitution and Restructuring. Pretoria: Africa Institute
