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Silindile Nanzile Mlilo

Silindile Nanzile Mlilo

Senior Research Associate, Citizenship and Participation Theme
EducationPhD, University of Witwatersrand
LinkedIn  (external link, opens in new window) 

 

Silindile Mlilo is a migration scholar, practitioner, and consultant with extensive experience in migration governance, xenophobia monitoring, social cohesion, and youth-focused policy across Africa and Asia. She is a Senior Research Associate at the Bridging Divides program, based at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)'s Global Migration Institute, where her work aligns with the Citizenship and Participation research theme.

Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Project Manager at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), University of the Witwatersrand, where she led research and managed the Xenowatch project, which monitors xenophobic discrimination across South Africa. She is also the co-founder of Meraki Afrique, a social enterprise advancing regional integration in Africa, and a part-time content creator and interviewer committed to amplifying African voices in migration scholarship.

Silindile holds a PhD in Migration and Displacement from Wits University. She is a 2024 Next Gen Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellow, a Young African Leaders Programme (EUI) alumna (2022), and an Erasmus Mundus Scholar (2013–2015). Her doctoral research examined postcolonial identity, belonging, and citizenship among non-Tswana migrant descendants in Botswana. Her work centres on migration, citizenship, belonging, and postcolonial statehood in Southern Africa.

Selected publications

Mbeve, O., Mohapi, M., Mapurisa, A., Mlilo, S., Mokhitlinyane, I. P., Maja, L., Ledwaba, S. K., Mayisela, S., & Nkomo, T. S. (2025). “…the research… at PhD level, it gets quite lonely… (external link) ”: Creating a community of practice through a writing retreat. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 9(2), 74–101.

Mlilo, S.N (2025) Constructing National Identity in Botswana: Historical and Contextual Developments from Colonial Times to the Present, The Journal of African Studies and Research Forum, 34(1), 61 -80

Muleya, E., & Mlilo, S.N. (2023). The use of ubuntu in social work practice: Lessons from the Gauteng Homeless Programme. In B. Mayaka, C. Uwihangana, & A. D. van Breda (Eds.), The ubuntu practitioner: Social work perspectives (pp. 85-113). International Federation of Social Workers.