2024 – Social justice and development in a polarising world
Hybrid at SOAS, University of London
The theme of the conference was Social justice and development in a polarising world; rights and representation; redistribution and restoration; reproduction and production.
Underpinning all global development discourses, practice and policy – sometimes explicitly, often implicitly – is the issue of social justice. Whether framed within formal discourses of human rights, representation or redistribution; an intended or unintended outcome of development policy and interventions; or a contested idea around which debates on equality, equity, fairness and responsibility are framed and debated, social justice is at the heart of global development. Orthodox development priorities and institutions, too, acknowledge explicitly (if perhaps problematically) social justice as a core feature of global development priorities and interventions.
Conference Host
#DSA2024 conference took place as a hybrid conference and was organised and hosted by SOAS, University of London. The Conference convenor was Michael Jennings and the Local Committee members were Alessandra Mezzadri, Miguel Nino, Sara Stevano, Sarah Njeri, Surbhi Kesal and Antonio Andreoni.
Plenary 1: Social Reproduction, Depletion and/in Crisis
Speaker:
- Shirin Rai, Research Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies SOAS, University of London and Founding Director of Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development (WICID)at the University of Warwick.
Chair:
- Alessandra Mezzadri
Sponsored by Oxford Development Studies
Plenary 2: On not being poor: bare life and Bangla-futurism in the aid lab
Speaker:
- Naomi Hossain is a political sociologist with degrees in philosophy, politics, economics, social anthropology and development studies from the University of Oxford, London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Sussex
Chair:
- Navtej Purewal
Sponsored by Journal of Development Studies
Plenary 3: Re-reading the ‘right to development’: The imperative of sovereign national project and policy sovereignty
Speakers:
- Jimi Adeṣina is a Professor and the South African Research Chair in Social Policy at the College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa in South Africa.
Chair:
- Christopher Cramer
Sponsored by Journal of International Development