DSA2025 – Navigating crisis; dangers and opportunities in development
Hybrid at University of Bath
The theme of the conference was Navigating crisis: dangers and opportunities in development.
The world has been experiencing profoundly unsettling times and compounding experiences of crisis in the continual unfolding of capitalist development. Alongside rising inequalities, inflation, and enforced austerity, people have been subjected to an admixture of dangers: escalating wars, polarised politics, recurring health emergencies, and deepening ecological crises. Policymakers are increasingly referring to a ‘polycrisis’, where global risks come together to exceed the sum of their parts. Yet, alongside profound dangers, crises always generate commensurate opportunities for transformation and positive change. We invited reflections on how this danger/opportunity dialectic at the heart of crisis and capitalism is playing out in the field of development.
Conference Host
#DSA2025 conference took place as a hybrid conference and was organised and hosted by the Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath. The conference convenors were Mihika Chatterjee and Aurelie Charles, and the Local Committee members were Ben Radley, James Copestake, Oliver Walton, Virgi Sari and Asha Amirali.
Plenaries
Plenary 1: Locating Hope within the (poly)crisis; a discussion between Jean Dreze (Visiting Professor at Ranchi University, Jharkhand) and Adomako Ampofo (Professor of African and gender studies at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana (UG))
Chaired by: Ana Cecilia Dinerstein (University of Bath)
Sponsored by: Journal of International Development
Plenary 2: Economics and Development Studies: where next in addressing the (poly)crisis?’ a discussion between Jayati Ghosh (Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) and Diego Sanchez Ancochea (Associate Head for People of Oxford’s Social Science Division, sub-Warden of St Antony´s College and professor of the Political Economy of Development)
Chaired by: Prof. James Copestake (University of Bath)
Sponsored by: Journal of Development Studies
Plenary 3: Adaptive Political Economy: Toward a New Paradigm by Yuen Yuen Ang
Chaired by Prof. Joe Devine (University of Bath)
Sponsored by Oxford Development Studies