By Dr Claude Samha

This year’s DSA conference marked a meaningful shift in how we think about knowledge production in development studies. Across panels and informal exchanges, one could sense a growing commitment to bridging the gap between academic inquiry and practitioner-led action, not as a gesture of inclusion, but as a reimagining of how knowledge is co-created.

I had the privilege of attending DSA 2025 as a representative of Basmeh & Zeitooneh (B&Z), a refugee-led organisation rooted in community-based response and advocacy. Participating in this space as both a researcher and a practitioner offered a rare opportunity to reflect on the real-world implications of research, particularly in contexts of displacement, exclusion, and crisis.

What was especially striking was the strong presence of researchers and practitioners from the so-called “Global South”, a term we invoke with reservation , recognising its limitations and the hierarchies it often reinforces. These colleagues were not merely contributing to existing frameworks; they were reshaping the questions, the methods, and the ethics of engagement. Their work foregrounds lived experience, community accountability, and the politics of representation in ways that challenge extractive models of research.

In the two panels I participated in: Reimagining Humanitarian Governance: Refugee-Led Innovations in Crisis Response and Data, Power, and Inclusion: Perspectives from Refugee-Led Research, we explored how refugee-led organisations are not only responding to crises but also producing knowledge and shaping governance. These conversations moved beyond theory to grapple with the structural realities of research: how it is conducted, who owns it, and how it translates into action.

If we are serious about sustaining this convergence between scholarship and practice, we must move beyond the conference moment. I propose five concrete steps to deepen this collaboration in the years ahead:

1. Practitioner-Scholar Residency Tracks: Embed refugee-led organisation leaders within academic institutions, and place scholars within community initiatives. These exchanges foster mutual learning, disrupt siloed expertise, and build trust across sectors.

2. Co-Authored Publication Platforms: Prioritise co-authored submissions between practitioners and academics in journals and working paper series. Editorial support should be provided to translate field insights into publishable formats, while recognising non-traditional knowledge forms such as oral histories, community mapping, and testimony.

3. Dialogic Conference Formats: Reimagine panel structures to center dialogue over presentation. Formats like “paired reflections” or roundtables that begin with community testimony can shift power dynamics and make space for multilingual, multi-positional engagement.

4. Regional Satellite Gatherings: Host smaller, DSA-affiliated regional events co-organised with refugee-led networks. These gatherings would surface context-specific insights, build continuity between annual conferences, and feed into DSA’s thematic priorities with grounded recommendations.

5. Toolkits and Method Labs: Support the development of open-access toolkits that reflect co-designed methodologies. For example, adaptations of the By Refugees, For Refugees model could be tested across different contexts, with shared repositories of trauma-aware, inclusive research practices.

These proposals are not exhaustive, but they reflect a shared desire to move from symbolic inclusion to structural transformation. DSA has the potential to become not just a meeting point, but a laboratory for radical collaboration, where knowledge is co-owned, where research is accountable, and where the boundaries between theory and practice are not blurred, but reimagined.

Let us build that future together.

Claude Samha, PhD is Research Technical Manager, at Basmeh and Zeitooneh, Beirut, Lebanon.