Norma Kriger is South African born and raised. She has a BA in Economics and Mathematics and a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Cape Town. She got her PhD in Political Science from M.I.T. She taught at Johns Hopkins University for more than a decade and produced two Cambridge University Press books on peasant-guerrilla relations during Zimbabwe’s war of independence and on the ruling party’s use of former guerrillas in its state- and nation-building project. She has done consultancies for organizations such as Human Rights Watch, International Rescue Committee, USAID, and the World Bank working in Senegal, South Sudan, Timor Leste, and Zimbabwe. At the Library of Congress, she did research on terrorist organizations, among other topics. In 2025, she did research in Zimbabwe evaluating USAID’s democracy, rights and governance programs and in Namibia on rights for LGBTQI+ individuals. Her two current academic research projects are on multinational corporations’ strategies in situations of violent conflict, and on Zimbabwe’s military coup in 2017. She has been a consultant for Communitology since 2022.
She finds access to the UK Home Office decisions before agreeing to write expert opinion reports helpful in determining if she can assist.
Child soldiers, Deportees/criminal deportees, Ethnic discrimination or persecution, Ex-combatant reintegration, Forced marriage, Gang-related violence/non-state actors, Gender-based violence/domestic violence, Healthcare access/health systems capacity, Journalist persecution, Land tenure disputes, LGBTQ, Likelihood of destitution or homelessness, Military/police service, Political persecution, Government/state actor persecution, Risk of retaliation, Safe internal relocation, Sexual abuse/assault, Sufficiency of protection, Torture, Trafficking, Tribal discrimination or persecution, Violence against children/child abuse
I have worked on refugee and asylum issues producing academic articles, consultant reports for organizations (e.g. World Bank, Human Rights Watch), and over 35 expert opinion reports for US and UK immigration courts for asylum seekers from Zimbabwe and Namibia. I have also done work on migrants and asylum seekers in South Africa.
Kriger, N.J., 1991. Zimbabwe's guerrilla war: peasant voices. Cambridge University Press
Kriger, N.J., 2003. Guerrilla veterans in post-war Zimbabwe: Symbolic and violent politics, 1980–1987. Cambridge University Press.