Kerala’s Rice Bowl is Threatened by a Salty Future: Farmers Must Be Part of the Solution
By Saumik Paul, Anikha S. Kumar, Jibin J K and Bhagya Gopakumar
For generations, the vast paddy fields of Kuttanad, in the Indian state of Kerala, have sustained farming communities and contributed significantly to the state’s rice production. Known as the “Rice Bowl of Kerala,” Kuttanad is unique because it is the only place in India and one of the few places in the world where rice is cultivated below mean sea level (1.2 – 3 meters), thus making the region both agriculturally unique and environmentally vulnerable. Its below-sea-level farming system has been recognised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System since 2013.
Social policies and structural change in the Global South
A new collection edited by Armando Barrientos, Matthew Carnes, Huck-Ju Kwon, Herbert Obinger, Leila Patel, and Carina Schmitt provides a thorough examination of social policy developments in the Global South.
Before building a cooperative, learn to cooperate: ‘Let’s Coop!’, The Cooperative Board Game Experience
When people think about creating a cooperative, they often imagine legal registration, governance structures, business plans, and financing. These are all important steps. But after spending the past few years researching and working alongside cooperatives, I have become convinced that one challenge is often even greater: learning how to cooperate.
Embodied, community-based and collective approaches to migration: practicing decoloniality at the annual IMISCOE conference
by Tanja Bastia, Thais França, Andrea Souto, Felicity Atieno Okoth, Lorena Izaguirre, Satrio Nindyo Istiko
Between 29th and 2nd July, the International Migration Research Network (IMISCOE) held its annual conference in Girona. On the last day of the conference, we gathered for a workshop to discuss how we can move decolonial critiques forward with more embodied, community-based and collective approaches to studying migration. The backdrop to the workshop was the recognition that in today’s political and social climate, migrants, migration, as well as migration scholars are often used as scapegoats for the ongoing crisis of capitalism (Michiel Baas and Nina Glick Schiller).
GDI Digest: Demystifying Development Stories
by Louisa Hann
To state the obvious, the world is a big place. Most of us rely on mainstream news outlets and other popular media to keep abreast of developments across continents and countries. While there’s an abundance of informative, high-quality information available in today’s digital era, it can be tricky to look beyond common narratives that may not tell the whole story about people or places.
Policy Fellowship on The New Geopolitics of Global Governance
A new opportunity has arisen to join the virtual think tank BRICS+ Thinking as a Policy Fellow. Over the course of one year, the successful fellow will be tasked with producing a policy report on the changing nature of global governance, with a particular focus on north-south initiatives. Read on to learn more about the role and how to apply.
Development studies in the age of AI: what should we teach, and what kinds of graduates do we need?
Artificial intelligence is transforming development practice, university education and graduate work. Development studies must respond not by chasing technological novelty, but by strengthening its distinctive capacity to interrogate power, inequality, ethics and institutional change.
GDI at the DSA Conference 2026
Many academics and postgraduate students from across GDI are heading to Dublin next week to take part in this year’s Development Studies Association Conference. Hosted by the Centre for Sustainable Development at University College Dublin, the hybrid event will bring together hundreds of delegates to discuss the topic ‘Reimagining Development: Power, Agency, and Futures in an Uncertain World’.
Looking for absences in global development
By Daniela Cocco Beltrame and Teklehaymanot Weldemichel
Emancipation from the oppressions humans have inflicted on one another is, necessarily, collective. There is no individual escape route. As the often-cited words attributed to Lilla Watson remind us: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This is not a polite invitation but a political and philosophical demand that development studies as a field has too often failed to meet.
Global Poverty Reduction Revisited: Good News and Bad News on Societal Poverty Trends
by David Hulme and Saumik Paul
New data and recently developed measures (defined in Box 1) make it possible to reassess what has been happening with global poverty reduction since the end of the Cold War and to consider future prospects. Our analysis confirms one well-known finding (the good news); deepens the understanding of a second trend that was to be expected; and identifies a third trend that is extremely worrying (the bad news).