Keynote speakers will present each day of DSA 2023 and deliver a talk for all attendees. 

Sponsored by Oxford Development Studies

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.

She was one of the key contributors to the writing of the Green and White Papers on South African Disaster Management and was a major contributing author for the Disaster Management Act and one of the Chapter Lead Authors of the Africa Chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC 4th Assessment Report. 

Coleen is currently the City of Johannesburg’s lead for Adaptation and climate change.

She is passionate about youth development and is very involved in mentoring students (both undergraduate and post graduates) helping to advance both theory and praxis in various practical research projects with value-add impacts. 

She recently co-authored an internationally collaborative piece, with scientists proposing the adoption of practical wisdom in the fight against climate change. 

Sponsored by the Journal of Development Studies.

Jason W. Moore  is an environmental historian and historical geographer at Binghamton University, where he is professor of sociology. He also leads the World-Ecology Research Collective, a global collaboration of scholars, artists and activists, which he describes as “a conversation rather than a theory.” World-ecology encourages a radically engaged and diverse family of perspectives committed to transcending capitalism’s modes of thought, production and reproduction. 

Jason is co-author of the book  A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. 

He describes the common thread of his research as “to look at the formation of the proletariat, around paid work, the femitariat, around socially necessary unpaid work, care work, etc., and the biotariat—the work of the web of life as a whole”. 

Sponsored by the Journal of International Development

Jay Mistry is a Professor of Environmental Geography. Her research interests include environmental management and governance, participatory visual methods and Indigenous geographies. 

Her work involves supporting local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation, action research using participatory video and Indigenous rights. She is also interested in different types of fire knowledge and how these can be brought together for more effective and socially just fire management and governance.

Jay is also Associate Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society. She describes herself as a “cross-over scientist” with regards to the natural and social sciences. She started in nature sciences but realised engaging with people was key to achieving change.