Feature image: “Culvert community, Freetown, Sierra Leone” by Salamatu Kemokai The Simon Bryceson Fund was created from donations in memory of Simon Bryceson, a University of York Alum (BA Politics, 1982). The Fund is designed to support PhD students associated with the IGDC (or whose work broadly relates to the theme of global development) with fieldwork bursaries to … Continue reading Simon Bryceson Award winners tell us about their PhD research

Yunus R (2023) ‘Labour class’ children’s schooling in urban India: a sociological account. London: Routledge. (Available from Routledge, Amazon). Why is it important to study poor children’s schooling? Development and policy discourses have long argued that schooling is the antidote to child labour and key to reducing poverty and driving economic growth in regions of … Continue reading Book commentary/review. ‘Labour class’ children’s schooling: a sociological account by Reva Yunus.

by IGDC Member Gideon Baffoe As African cities continue to urbanise rapidly, many are becoming epicentres of overlapping crises, including climate shocks, poverty, food insecurity, and institutional fragmentation. Despite the chaos, however, overlooked practices like urban agriculture (UA) are quietly building resilience. At the Development Studies Association (DSA) Conference 2025, I presented findings from my … Continue reading Thriving Amid Urban Chaos: Unlocking the Resilience Power of Urban Agriculture in Africa

by IGDC Member Matthias Flückiger Recent research by Matthias Flückiger and Markus Ludwig (2023) provides new evidence on the relationship between mobile phone coverage and infant mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on data from over 1.2 million births across 30 countries between 1999 and 2016, the study finds that the availability of mobile phone signal … Continue reading Dialling Down Infant Mortality: Mobile Phone Coverage and Child Health in Sub-Saharan Africa

By Karen Coales PhD, Mental Health and Addictions Research Group, Department of Health Sciences, University of York Figure 1:A Pakistani female community health worker wearing a shawl covering her hair and lower face seated at a desk facing an older Pakistani male wearing a kurta and kufi head covering. They are looking at a workbook … Continue reading Listening to Health Workers’ Voices in LMICs

Duncan Green expands on some of the conversations in the Q&A after his IGDC Annual Lecture Co-option  Most influencing strategies combine a bit of Insider and a bit of Outsider. Insider approaches work through building relationships with those in power, either decision makers or those that can influence them. Outsider approaches range from street protest … Continue reading Activism in Practice: Wrestling with Complexity, Co-option and Burnout

by Dr Teodora Todorova In December 2024 I gave a presentation to the IGDC outlining the use of settler colonial theory for the study of Palestine/Israel – or the colonisation, occupation and settlement of the land of historic Palestine, on which the state of Israel was established in 1948, and the entirety of which the … Continue reading On Indigeneity in Settler Colonial States

by Peter Gardner, Susannah Williams, and Andrew Macdonald (cover image by Julia Hawkins) Older women have been the linchpin of post-2018 climate activism across the Global North. Much excellent work in social movement studies has explored the experiences, perspectives and outlooks of young environmental activists. However, the roles played by older women activists have received … Continue reading Power, Politics and Climate Care: Older Women Activists of Extinction Rebellion

by Victoria Frois Borrero, a University of York Politics & International Relations PhD student What are the implications of and challenges posed by the far-right in Europe and Latin America? This was the question discussed by Daphne Halikiopoulou from the University of York and Leslie Wehner from the University of Bath as part of a … Continue reading The Far-Right and Populism in Europe and Latin America

IGDC member Helen Elsey, Margaret Nampijja and Linda Oloo present findings from their new article published in Frontiers in Public Health Back in 1978, Castells wrote: “the subordinate role of women … enables the minimal maintenance of the city’s housing, transport and public facilities … because women guarantee unpaid transportation, because they repair their homes, … Continue reading Who cares about baby-cares? Insights from the Nairobi Day-Care Project