2023 – Crisis in the Anthropocene: Rethinking connection and agency for development

Hybrid at the University of Reading

The theme of the conference is Crisis in the Anthropocene: Rethinking Connection and Agency for Development. The Anthropocene—and its conditions, structures and relationships under which we operate—potentially signals a new era in human development in which crises of environment and nature increasingly take centre stage. From climate change to plastic pollution and biodiversity loss, to the emergence of novel viruses, new challenges seem to continually emerge in an interconnected world in which uncertainty, risk and precarity are the ‘new normal’. The Anthropocene, therefore, unsettles, and potentially overturns, conventional ways of theorising and practising development that foreground and privilege human intention in the face of an unruly, dynamic and ‘creative’ natural world.

Conference Host

#DSA2023 conference took place as a hybrid conference and was organised and hosted by the University of Reading. The Conference convenor was Alex Arnall and the Local Committee members were Sophie Blackburn, Sophie De Pauw, Mike Goodman, Elisavet Kitou, Henny Osbahr and Sam Rawlings.

Plenaries

Plenary 1: Addressing social and environmental justice through creating spaces for dialogue

Speakers:

• Jay Mistry, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London, Co-Director, Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and SocietyCo-Director, Cobra Collective CIC

Chair:

• Mike Goodman

Sponsored by Journal of International Development

Plenary 2: Civilizing Projects in the Capitalocene, or, Imperialism Developmentalisms in the Web of Life

Speaker:

• Jason W. Moore is an environmental historian and historical geographer at Binghamton University, where he is professor of sociology and leads the World-Ecology Research Collective

Chair:

• Uma Kambhampati

Discussant:

• Neha Hui

Sponsored by Journal of Development Studies

Plenary 3: Stories from the South – the interplay of climate science, ‘action’ and implications for development

Speakers:

• Coleen Vogel is a Distinguished Professor in the Global Change Institute at the University of Witwatersrand, with expertise on climate change and adaptation, working particularly at international and local governance scales.

Chair:

• Emmanuel Essah

Sponsored by Oxford Development Studies