From Prof. Uma S.Kambhampati, DSA President

As I write this in late July in the UK, I am looking out at a cold, dull day while Europe is suffering from extreme heat and related forest fires. It is hard not to think of climate change – Crisis in the Anthropocene – the theme of the DSA’s conference at the University of Reading a few weeks ago! One of the keynotes, Jason W Moore, argued forcibly that the crisis was not so much caused by humans as by capital – not an Anthropocene crisis but a Capitalocene one. Whatever the cause, the damage of course, is to humans as a number of the panels in the conference reminded us. These included the impact of climate change on livelihoods, the problem of energy poverty as well as the local impact of climate change in South Asia and Africa.

The conference at Reading brought together 450 people to discuss these issues, with a further 250 online. The dilemma of minimising the climate impact of travel, while also maintaining a sense of community is one that affects most academic conferences these days and the DSA was not exempt. In this context, hybrid conferences are here to stay but, after a hiatus of 3 years, it was a delight to see so many people in person in Reading. It is now time to look ahead to the next conference which will be hosted at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Before that, however, there is much that remains to be done. I took on as President of the DSA at the Reading AGM. How would I like to see the DSA in a few years’ time? I would like to see it as a vibrant, dynamic organisation that provides a community to anybody working on development issues. As an organisation that attracts early career researchers and post graduate students, who see within the DSA, a discussion of the issues that matter most to them. As an organisation that is diverse and inclusive in the voices it represents and also the disciplines that it houses.

As I said at the time, there are a few key tasks that I would like to concentrate on during my tenure. The first of these is the race audit of the development studies community in the UK. The audit aims to map how diverse (or not) this community is. Given the nature of our research/practise, which engages significantly with the global South, an understanding of our own position and the identity of those making policy and other recommendations, seems critical. Work on this has already begun but it has not been easy. The academic development studies community in the UK is spread across a range of disciplines, departments and centres, making collection of information challenging. Neither HESA data nor FoI requests have been successful. We will therefore be writing directly to the head of our institutional members with a survey link to collect this information. I would be most grateful if you could respond to this survey. It should only take a few minutes.

In addition to diversity in terms of identity, disciplinary diversity is also key to development studies. As the DSA’s outgoing president, Sam Hickey, has said there is some concern that development economists no longer see the DSA as their community despite working on development issues. I am myself a development economist and the first DSA conference I attended was in Dublin in 1995. I have found it a welcoming and supportive community and would like to re-engage the economists. Both the DSA and the economics community would benefit from this association. If any of you reading this note are economists and would like, for instance, to set up a study group relating to economic issues in development or a panel at the next conference, please do approach us with your ideas.

Finally, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to lead your organisation. Thanks to Sam Hickey for providing leadership to the DSA over the last three years. I look forward to engaging with many of you in the next few years.

From Prof. Uma S.Kambhampati, DSA President