The Global Development Research Division will host the third workshop of this academic year on the 12th of February between 13:00 and 14:30. This workshop focuses on how history has shaped development and how the field has evolved since it’s inception. To join us please contact Division Lead Alex Arnall.
Between unfreedoms: a historical study of caste and indentured labour
Neha Hui
Policies on modern day slavery and unfreedom can benefit from historical analysis of various unfreedoms that existed in the past. In this presentation I will share some insights from an ongoing research on colonial unfree labour in the form of indentured work and reflect on how historical research can benefit research in global development.
What do we teach when we teach ‘development’?
Jo Davies
Development studies has faced increasing calls to ‘…move beyond its complicity with Western knowledge and power’. Do development studies programmes challenge current structural inequalities or reinforce them? I am engaging in research grounded in a dialogic learning approach; challenging the closed nature of the space in which curriculum design operates. My goal is open dialogue in a way that engages with the knowledge, voices and priorities of all stakeholders and begins to address the historical and political drivers of knowledge hierarchies.
Progression, extension, development, and the origins of The MERL
Ollie Douglas (Curator of MERL collections)
Critical re-examination of the establishment and early development of the Museum of English Rural Life has begun to reveal colonial motivations and perspectives that played a formative part in bringing this institution into being. This talk will draw on a handful of examples that illustrate these histories and invites us to question what position the Museum should adopt to ideas of progression and change today.