15 Years of Austerity Eroded Public Infrastructure—Now Extreme Heat Is Exposing the Cost
By Dr Gemma Sou and Ms Clare Steele. We’re told ever-hotter summers are inevitable. What’s less discussed is that Britain’s ability to cope has been systematically dismantled — not by the climate itself, but by 15 years of austerity. The UK has just endured its fourth...
The Emperor’s New Clothes? Why Localisation Still Leaves Power in Northern Hands
Nicola Banks and Gijs van Selm Localisation. Locally Led Development. Shift the Power. These phrases have become fixtures in the language of international aid. They promise a simple but powerful idea: put resources and decision-making closer to the communities they...
What to expect from Welcome Week 2025 at GDI
As the start of term approaches, GDI is looking forward to welcoming our new students. To kick off the semester, we will be hosting a Welcome Week on campus (22nd – 26th September) where we will provide induction sessions, meetings and mixers to get to know...
Silence, Dust and Oblivion: Reflections on Extractive Legacies from the Atacama Desert
Remains of the Pampa Lina saltpetre offices (foreground) beside modern mining waste (background). Photo: Esteban Valle Riestra By Esteban Valle Riestra, Postgraduate researcher, GDI The Atacama Desert in Chile may appear to be a barren and unproductive land, where...
Call for Papers: Conference on the Future of Development Economics
December 11-12, 2025, University of Manchester, UK. With support from The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute Journal of Development Studies Conference Fund Keynote speakers: Ravi Kanbur (Professor of Economics, Cornell University) and Anandi Mani...
Call for Papers – ‘(Re-)establishing Political Economy in Development Studies’
An Early Career-led and focused workshop from the PhD ‘Political Economy of Development’ working group. Funded by the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) and the Development Studies Association (DSA), linked to the joint...
Being a migrant: embodied experiences and bodily strategies
by Tanja Bastia, Erika Busse, Verónica Montes, and Andrea Souto Garcia At the 25th IMISCOE conference, the largest migration conference in Europe, recently held in Paris, we (the authors) took the opportunity to meet and discuss our respective research experiences,...
“I’m a ‘privileged’ researcher from a Global North university”: When reflexivity becomes performative (and why that matters)
by Anuradha Ganapathy, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester “Development” as a concept and field of study is far from being free of its colonial, patriarchal, and hierarchical legacies. In this context, questions of who researches and who is being...