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’.

GDI’s cohort have convened panels and will deliver papers that respond to the challenges of development in a world of fast-shifting power dynamics, climatic volatility, and emergent grassroots movements.

• View the full programme

If you’re planning to attend the conference and would like to see what GDI researchers are up to, we’ve picked out the various panels with which they’re involved below. Wherever our researchers have shared responsibilities with colleagues from other institutions and organisations, we’ve listed all contributors and included affiliations in brackets. All GDI researchers and UoM colleagues are noted in bold text.

 

PO1: G(local) political economy of green transition: Actors, institutions, and power shifts

Session 1, Thursday, 9 July, 9-10.30am

• ‘Critiquing the JUST approach to green energy transitions with insights from Canada and South Africa: Towards a more transformational approach’ – Sam Hickey (GDI), Joshua McEvoy, Philani Moyo (University of Fort Hare)

 

PO3: Climate justice and African futures: From adaptation to transformative change

Session 1, Wednesday, 8 July, 2.45-4.15pm

• ‘Visualizing climate knowledge: Power, place, and locally led adaptation in Lake Chad region, Nigeria’ – Katarzyna Cieslik (GDI), Chidi Ezegwu (University of Manchester), Mbarumun Priscilla Achakpa (Women Environmental Programme (WEP)), Kosiso Ofianwa, Abdul-Gafar Tobi Oshodi (Lagos State University), Marcellus Mbah, Godswill Egede, Liberty Sam-Urom (Welentons School of Health Technology)

 

PO6: The New South in Global Development

Convenors: Elisa Gambino (GDI) and Idrajit Roy (University of York)

Session 1, Friday, 10 July, 9-10.30am

• ‘Southern agency: Global production networks in an era of global uncertainty’ – Elisa Gambino (GDI)

 

PO7: Who speaks for development? Decolonising knowledge and practice

Session 2, Thursday, 9 July, 11.15am-12.45pm

• ‘Who speaks for restoration? Biocultural vs institutional visions of success in Mexico’s Mixteca Alta’ – Mariana Hernandez-Montilla (GDI), Johan Oldekop (GDI), Rose Pritchard (GDI), Timothy Foster (University of Manchester)

 

P11: Tension? Competing visions for digital agriculture and rural development: Smallholder agency vs profitable business models at scale

Convenors: Ebenezer Ngissah (Wageningen University and Research), Esther Kihoro (ILRI), Katarzyna Cieslik (GDI), Daniel Ankrah (University of Ghana), Katherine Legun (Wageningen)

Session 1, Thursday, 9 July, 11.15am-12.45pm

• ‘Opposing views in practice: Data and dependencies in Africa’s agricultural platform economy’ – Mariette Campbell (Independent consultant), Josephine Ewoma (University of Manchester), Katarzyna Cieslik (GDI), Chibueze Peace Obioma (University of Manchester)
• ‘Building community-centric data infrastructures: Insights from co-creating a participatory data tool with farming communities in rural India’ – Anuradha Ganapathy (GDI), Richard Heeks (GDI), Gianluca Iazzolino (GDI)

 

Session 2, Thursday, 9 July, 4.30-6pm

• ‘Why digital matchmaking platforms for mechanisation services do not reduce gender-based barriers: Evidence from Ghana’ – Ebenezer Ngissah (Wageningen University and Research), Comfort Freeman (University of Ghana), Naa Aku Mingle (University of Ghana), Katarzyna Cieslik (GDI), Cees Leeuwis (Wageningen University Research), Delali Freedman Woledzi (University of Ghana), Mariette Campbell (Independent consultant)

 

P14: Grassroots agency and power: Reimagine solidarity and decolonisation [NGO in the development SG]

Session 3, Thursday, 9 July, 4.30-6pm

• ‘Everyday humanitarianism as a localised response to crisis: Covid-19 and solidarity among migrant populations in the Horn of Africa’ – Tanja Müller (GDI)

 

P19: Is development still possible? [politics and political economy SG]

Convenors: Pritish Behuria (GDI), Md Imran Hossain Bhuiyan (GDI)

Session 1, Wednesday, 8 July, 2.45-4.15pm

• ‘Pension funds and contemporary state capitalism: The case of Rwanda’ – Pritish Behuria (GDI)

 

Session 2, Wednesday, 8 July, 4.45-6.15pm

• ‘Winds of dependency: Production injustice through peripheralization in Brazil and India’ – Rafael da Silva da Costa (University of Warwick), Pritish Behuria (GDI)
• ‘The political economy of environmental and labour standards in the manufacturing industries of the global south: Case of the leather sector in Bangladesh’ – Md Imran Hossain Bhuiyan (GDI)

 

Session 3, Thursday, 9 July, 9-10.30am

• ‘History matters: The role of extractive legacies in lithium industrial policy in the lithium triangle’ – Esteban Valle Riestra (GDI)

 

P21: The post-aid retrenchment era and equitable partnerships in development: Reclaiming southern power and agency

Convenors: Mohammed Ibrahim (GDI), Muhammad Dan Suleiman (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals), Fadah Albylwi (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals)

Session 1, Wednesday, 8 July, 2.45-4.15pm

• ‘Saudi Arabia and west Africa in development partnership: Alternatives in the post-aid retrenchment era’ – Mohammed Ibrahim (GDI), Muhammad Dan Suleiman (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals), Fadah Albylwi (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals)

 

Session 2, Wednesday, 8 July, 4.45-6.15pm

• ‘From vulnerability to adaptation: Non-profit sector governance and survival in an era of declining aid’ – Mohammed Ibrahim (GDI), Adbul Karim Ibrahim (University of Ghana), Muhammad Dan Suleiman (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals), Comfort Tiwaa Kwarteng (State Capacity and Citizenship Building Centre (SCCB-Africa)

 

P34: The political economy of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and development [digital technologies, data and development SG]

Convenors: Atika Kemal (University of Essex), Gianluca Iazzolino (GDI)

 

P39: Materialities of infrastructure: Exploring how development is built, lived, and contested

Session 1, Wednesday, 8 July, 2.45-4.15pm

• ‘From disruption to delay: The politics of recovery of small infrastructures following the 2024 Nepal floods’ – Nimesh Dhungana (University of Manchester), Narayan Adhikari (Accountability Lab Nepal), Oshin Maharjan (Accountability Lab Nepal)

 

Session 2, Wednesday, 8 July, 4.15-6.15pm

• ‘Understanding heterogeneous sanitation practices and emerging alternatives in Nairobi’s informal settlement of Mukuru’ – Alice Sverdlik (University of Manchester), Patrick Njoroge (AMT)

 

P43: Rethinking activism and academia in the Global South

Session 1, Wednesday, 8 July, 2.15-4.15pm

• Daniela C Beltrame (GDI), Smith Ouma (GDI), Teurai Anna Nyamangara (Slum Dwellers International – Zimbabwe), Diana Mitlin (GDI)

 

P55: Questions on the future of aid and development

Session 2, Friday, 10 July, 2.45-4.15pm

• ‘From assistance to diplomacy: Rethinking development finance’ – Eman Alsulaiti (University of Manchester)

 

P56: Youth mobilisations, informality, and urban futures in the Global South

Session 2, Thursday, 9 July, 11.15am-12.45pm

• ‘African youth and urban social movements: Possible becomings of a time-for-itself’ – Daniela C Beltrame (GDI)

 

Session 3, Thursday, 9 July, 4.30-6pm

• ‘The political lives of water tanks: Clientelism, youth mobilisation, and metabolic fragmentation in Nairobi’s Mathare settlement’ – Kibui Edwin Rwigi (GDI)

 

P60: Urban informality, grassroots agency, and alternative visions of progress [urbanisation SG]

Convenors: Graeme Young (University of Glasgow), Alice Sverdlik (University of Manchester), Martina Manara (UCL)

Session 1, Friday, 10 July, 9-10.30am

• ‘From below and above: The politics of land transformation on South Africa’s urban frontier’ – Carolin Dieterle (GDI)

 

P63: Development pasts and futures amid renewed great power competition

Convenors: Nicholas Jepson (GDI), Imogen Liu

Session 1, Friday, 10 July, 9-10.30am

• ‘Critical minerals and developmental switching points: A world-historical perspective’ – Nicholas Jepson (GDI)

 

Session 2, Friday 10 July, 2.45-4.15pm

• ‘Arbitrating multipolarity: China-Saudi dispute resolution in an era of great power competition’ – Marvin Cheuk Him Lee (GDI)
• ‘Reconfiguring development finance amidst geopolitical rivalries and sovereign debt crises – Evidence from Sri Lanka and Kenya’ – Umesh Moramudali (GDI)

 

P70: Brokers, agency and power in a fragmenting world

Convenors: Jonathan Goodhand (SOAS), Patrick Meehan (University of Manchester)

 

R10: Can development be a meaningful framework for justice and transformation in a rapidly changing world?

Wednesday, 8 July, 2.45-4.15pm, 4.45-6.15pm

Discussants: Divine Fuh (HUMA-Humanities in Africa Institute), Lata Narayanaswamy (University of Leeds), Peter Taylor (Institute of Development Studies), Cecilia Milesi (Global Change Center), Sam Hickey (GDI), Aram Ziai (University of Kassel), Kai Koddenbrock (Bard College Berlin)

 

R11: Large-grant funded research centres and the political economy of research

Friday, 10 July, 2.45-4.15pm

Discussants: Peter Taylor (Institute of Development Studies), Eyob Balcha Gebremariam (King’s College London), Indrajit Roy (University of York), Kibui Edwin Rwigi (GDI)

Photo by RDNE Stock project.