Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.

Nov
6
Mon
“The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations: Improving inter-civilizational relations?” by Prof Jeffrey Haynes (London Metropolitan University) @ Oxford Brookes University, Gibbs Building, Room G217
Nov 6 @ 4:15 pm – 5:30 pm

Abstract:
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) was created in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 (“9/11”). Its aim was to increase dialogue and reduce enmity between “civilizations,” notably between Christians and Muslims. In other words, the UNAOC was created to enhance life for the millions of people around the world imperiled by inter-civilizational and inter-religious tensions and conflicts. To what extent, if at all, has the UNAOC achieved its objective of enhancing life for such people? To what extent, if at all, is the world now committed to enhanced dialogue and understanding of different civilizations, cultures, and religions as a result of the activities of the UNAOC?

Jeffrey Haynes is Emeritus Professor of Politics at London Metropolitan University. He is currently writing two books on the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. He has research interests in several areas, including: religion and international relations; religion and politics; democracy and democratisation; and the politics of development. Haynes has more than 230 publications, including over 40 books. He is the book series editor of ‘Routledge Studies in Religion & Politics’, co-editor of the journal Democratization, and co-editor of Democratization’s book series, ‘Special Issues and Virtual Special Issues’.

Devaki Jain Lecture with Sonia Montaño @ Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre, St Anne's College
Nov 6 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Devaki Jain Lecture with Sonia Montaño @ Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre, St Anne's College | England | United Kingdom

How a Bolivian became a Feminist: A Personal History

Sonia Montaño is a Bolivian sociologist. She is currently active in Bolivia as a feminist researcher and activist and member of PIEB (Programa de Investigation Estrategica Bolivia). Between 1993 and 1995, she was Undersecretary of Gender Affairs at the Ministry of Human Development of Bolivia. Between 2000 and 2015 she was Chief of the Division for Gender Affairs at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, United Nations), providing leadership to regional conferences on women of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The history she will share is a particular mix of a biography within the influence of a socio-cultural context. Sonia was born in the fifties when Bolivia was initiating a revolutionary process that gave indigenous people, peasants and women the right to vote and acces to education. Raised in a discriminatory society and by a courageous mother and a liberal family she could very early see women wanting to do “different things”. She lived and participated in a country suffering of continuous authoritarian governments and dictatorships and numerous efforts to establish democracy. Her adolescence was influenced by the emerging of a strong workers movement fighting for their rights, the presence of Che Guevara that stimulated an early political participation that ended in 1972 when the Banzer dictatorship sent her to jail for a couple of months. This was followed by a long exile to the Netherlands and France where Sonia was able to study and meet women from all over the world which started her activism as a feminist.

Nov
7
Tue
The Sweatshop Regime: Garments, Exploitation, and labouring Bodies made in India @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum
Nov 7 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
The Sweatshop Regime: Garments, Exploitation, and labouring Bodies made in India @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum | England | United Kingdom

Drawing from Marxian and feminist insights, this presentation, based on a recently completed book, theorizes the garment sweatshop in India as a complex ‘regime’ of exploitation and oppression, jointly crafted by global, regional and local actors, and working across productive and reproductive realms. The analysis shows the tight correspondence between the physical and social materiality of garment production in India; it illustrates the great social differentiation and complex patterns of labour unfreedom at work in the industry; and it depicts the sweatshop as a complex joint enterprise against the labouring body, which is systematically and inexorably depleted and consumed by garment work, even in the absence of major industrial disasters, like Rana Plaza. By placing labour at the very centre of the analysis of processes of development, the book critically engages with key debates on industrial modernity, modern slavery, and ethical consumerism.

Nov
8
Wed
Culture’s role in hazard and climate change risk: worldviews, belief systems and ‘alternative facts’ @ Environmental Change Institute
Nov 8 @ 4:15 pm – 6:30 pm

Evidence from around the world indicates that culture can influence people’s vulnerability to climate variability and natural hazards, because expressions of culture include behaviour that results in exposure and sensitivity to hazards. Most studies have characterised this as a barrier to risk reduction, and few (none) have offered any suggestions for how to move beyond it, because of the ethical dilemma posed by influencing others’ beliefs for the purpose of reducing risk. At the same time, studies have documented people overcoming cultural taboos in the face of climate variability and natural hazards, including abandoning strict social structures, and conforming to parallel and occasionally contradictory belief systems as a way to overcome culturally imposed restrictions on behaviour. This lecture presents examples from around the world, and focuses on the question: What conditions would facilitate a shift in worldview to incorporate a risk reduction? Who’s understanding of risk is ‘correct’? And if perceptions of what reality are culturally-defined, does this mean that there is such a thing as ‘alternative facts’?

Dr Lisa Schipper is a Research Associate at the Overseas Development Institute. Her research specialty is adaptation and socio-cultural vulnerability to climate change and natural hazards. The context for nearly all of her work has been smallholder or subsistence agriculture in poor communities in Southeast and South Asia, Central and South America, and East Africa.

Dark Day – Fundraiser for Homeless Oxfordshire @ The Ultimate Picture Palace
Nov 8 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Dark Day - Fundraiser for Homeless Oxfordshire @ The Ultimate Picture Palace | United Kingdom

A talk by local charity Homeless Oxfordshire about Oxford’s ongoing issues around homelessness. The talk follows a screening of a documentary about a group of homeless New Yorkers living in an abandoned section of the underground railway system. All ticket money goes to the charity.

Nov
13
Mon
‘The ethics of Brexit’, by Prof Mervyn Frost (King’s College London) @ Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane Campus, Gibbs Building, Room G217
Nov 13 @ 4:15 pm – 5:30 pm

Abstract: This presentation will consider the ethical dimensions of Brexit. Specifically the case will be made that there are profound ethical questions posed by Brexit that have not properly been considered. The focus of the public debate has been largely on the pragmatic, economic and political reasons for and against Brexit. It is important to supplement these with a consideration of the ethical questions raised by it. In a book he edited entitled Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives (1994) Chris Brown made a case for constitutive theory as a way of approaching the ethical issues involved in proposals for restructuring Europe in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia. In this talk his analysis will be extended, illustrating how constitutive theory produces surprising, enlightening and important results that have so far been absent from the debate. The insights point to a set of political imperatives that ought not to be ignored.

Mervyn Frost is Professor of International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. Publications include: Towards a Normative Theory of International Relations (CUP, 1986), Ethics in International Relations (CUP, 1996), Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States (Routledge, 2002) and Global Ethics: Anarchy, Freedom and International Relations (Routledge, 2009). He edited a 4 volume reference work entitled International Ethics (Sage 2011). His recent work, with Dr Silviya Lechner, is focused on the “practice turn” in International Relations. Their book Practice Theory and International Relations is to be published by CUP in 2018.

Nov
14
Tue
Tracing Conscience in Time of War: Archiving a History of Dissent in Sri Lanka 1960s to 2000s @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum
Nov 14 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Tracing Conscience in Time of War: Archiving a History of Dissent in Sri Lanka 1960s to 2000s @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum | England | United Kingdom

Jonathan Spencer is Regius Professor of South Asian Language, Culture and Society at the University of Edinburgh. He has carried out research in Sri Lanka since the early 1980s. His most recent book, Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque (2014) concerns the role of religious organizations in the Sri Lankan civil war, and was co-authored with a team of Sri Lankan and European researchers.

This talk is a progress report from the midpoint in a 5-year comparative project on the Anthropology of Conscience, Ethics and Human Rights. For the Sri Lanka case study in this project the researchers have been interviewing dissenters, Sinhala and Tamil survivors of the 30-year civil war who took a stand against the violent claims of rival ethnonationalisms. The talk will combine some reflections on the translatability of the idea of “conscience” with preliminary analysis of the dissenters’ accounts of their lives and motivations.

The South Asia Seminar is co-funded by the Ashmolean Museum, the Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, the Department for International Development and Faculty of History and the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

St Benet’s Hall launch Catherine Pepinster’s book “The Keys & the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy from John Paul II to Francis” @ St Benet's Hall
Nov 14 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
St Benet's Hall launch Catherine Pepinster's book "The Keys & the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy from John Paul II to Francis" @ St Benet's Hall | England | United Kingdom

St Benet;s Hall are delighted to invite you to the launch of Catherine Pepinster’s new book: “The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy from John Paul II to Francis” on Tuesday 14th November at 5pm, to be followed by a drinks reception.

The event will end at 6.30pm and will be followed by Vespers in the Hall’s Chapel (optional).

Catherine Pepinster is a journalist, author and broadcaster. She is the former editor of The Tablet and was a Visiting Scholar at Benet’s in 2014/15.

All are welcome!

Nov
15
Wed
Talking climate in Texas – Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist and Christian @ The University Church of St Mary
Nov 15 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Talking climate in Texas - Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist and Christian @ The University Church of St Mary | England | United Kingdom

Katharine Hayhoe has been named one of FORTUNE’s ‘World’s Greatest Leaders’, TIME’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ and Huffington Post’s ‘20 Climate Champions’, and has shared the stage with Barack Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio to talk about climate change.

She is a climate scientist and a Christian based in Texas and has pioneered a way of talking about climate change that truly engages people as human beings and reaches even the most resistant of audiences.

Katharine’s approach is patient and compassionate and modeled after conversations she had with her husband, a linguistics professor and pastor who once himself had doubts about climate change. She is a brilliant communicator who spends her time talking with all sorts of people, from oil field engineers to Christian college students. She believes that “each of us, exactly as we are, with the values we already have, has every reason we need to care about climate change.”

She will be coming to Oxford on Wednesday 15th November 2017 as a guest of Climate Outreach, in partnership with The University Church of St Mary. At this not-to-be-missed event, Katharine will be in conversation with Climate Outreach’s founder George Marshall about how we can use community values to get people on board with climate change, why social science is more effective than statistics, graphs and facts in engaging people, and why we all need to get talking, and keep talking, about climate change.

The event will take place at The University Church of St Mary in Oxford on 15 November. Doors will open at 7pm for a 7:30pm start, and the event will be followed by a drinks reception.

Tickets cost £3 but students can attend for free upon showing a valid student ID on the night, but please register your place online to reserve a space.
This event is wheelchair accessible.

Nov
16
Thu
Lessons of the October Revolution @ Oxford Town Hall
Nov 16 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Lessons of the October Revolution @ Oxford Town Hall | England | United Kingdom

Come to this session of the Abe Lazarus Society, where we will be discussing the 1917 October Revolution and what can be learned from it today.

Nov
17
Fri
Luther’s Half-Millennium: Then and Now. The Adam von Trott Memorial Lecture. Speaker: Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch @ The Sir Joseph Hotung Auditorium, Hands Building, Mansfield College
Nov 17 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch is a Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford, TV presenter and author whose “History of Christainity: The First Three Thousand Years” won the 2010 Cundill Prize. His latest BBC2 series was “Sex and the Church” and he is currently writing a biography of Thomas Cromwell.

Nov
21
Tue
Like a family? Values, Hierarchies and Child Labour in Myanmar’s Small Businesses Sector @ Dahrendorf Room, St Antony's College
Nov 21 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Like a family? Values, Hierarchies and Child Labour in Myanmar’s Small Businesses Sector @ Dahrendorf Room, St Antony's College | England | United Kingdom

Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in Pathein, Myanmar, the paper investigates the moral underpinnings of responsibilities and hierarchies in small businesses, specifically the question of what makes a good employer. It will show how responsibilities beyond the mere paying of wages do not overcome the socio-economic gap between workers and employers, and that essentially, the shop floor remains an arena of control and inequality. The main case study is a tea shop, where a large part of the workforce is underage. Incorporating the perspectives of employers, workers and their families, customers, and agents, this talk will outline the complex moral arguments surrounding the employment of children and children’s roles as economic actors.

Laura Hornig is a PhD Candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Germany), specializing in economic anthropology. She is also a co-founder of the Berlin-based think tank “Myanmar-Institut e.V.”

Artificial Intelligence and Impact Investing @ Christ Church College Lecture Room 2
Nov 21 @ 7:45 pm – 9:45 pm
Artificial Intelligence and Impact Investing @ Christ Church College Lecture Room 2 | England | United Kingdom

HOW we fund impact as important as what we fund?

What’s new in INNOVATIVE FINANCING using technology to allow investors to match their risk, return and impact preferences with specific investments and portfolios.

Oxford Impact Investments, together with Oxford Futurists & Oxford Women in Consulting are proud to present our speaker who’s come all the way from Cape Town, South Africa:

Ms. Aunnie Patton Power
Founder, Intelligent Impact
Associate Fellow, Oxford University Bertha Centre for Social Innovation

Intelligent Impact was founded to explore how to harness Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning to help solve one of the intractable problems in the social impact / impact finance fields: how to access information that is reliable and actionable. Aunnie has advised on Innovative Finance projects including developing a South African Impact Investing National Advisory Board, a Green Investment Bank, Social Impact Bonds / Development Impact Bonds, a Green Outcomes Funds and others.

Venue @Christ Church College Lecture Room 2

Nov
22
Wed
Inducement and Smaller-States’ Triple Trade-offs: Southeast Asian Responses to China’s Belt and Road Initiative @ Deakin Room, St Antony's College
Nov 22 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Inducement and Smaller-States' Triple Trade-offs: Southeast Asian Responses to China's Belt and Road Initiative @ Deakin Room, St Antony's College | England | United Kingdom

Policy is about trade-offs, more so in the realm of external affairs. This is especially true for weaker and smaller states faced with material inducement from big power, as their inherent limitations and vulnerabilities mean that they are more exposed to the mixed effects of power-centred inducement than stronger states. This seminar focuses on Southeast Asian states’ responses to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, using the observable commonalities and variations across the region thus far to illustrate nuances of the “triple trade-offs” – across domains, time and levels – in driving, shaping and limiting weaker states’ reactions to the range of returns and risks surrounding the BRI. The speaker will argue that the trade-offs are weighted primarily along the ruling elites’ respective pathways of legitimation, for the ultimate end of boosting their own authority at home. This presentation is based on the speaker’s ongoing research project (with Lee Jones as Co-Investigator) under the Newton Advanced Fellowship, supported by the British Academy and the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia.

Cheng-Chwee Kuik is Associate Professor at the Strategic Studies and International Relations Program at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) and concurrently an associate member at the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya (UM). He is the founder and co-convener of the East Asian International Relations (EAIR) Caucus. Dr. Kuik is an adjunct lecturer at the Malaysian Armed Forces Defense College (under Ministry of Defense) and the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (under Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Previously he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton-Harvard “China and the World” Program, and a visiting research fellow at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations. Dr. Kuik’s research concentrates on weaker states’ foreign policy behaviour, regional multilateralism, East Asian security, China-ASEAN relations, and Malaysia’s external policy. His publications have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Contemporary China, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Asian Security, China: An International Journal, Asian Politics and Policy, East Asian Policy, Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi, as well as edited books. Cheng-Chwee’s essay “The Essence of Hedging” was awarded the biennial 2009 Michael Leifer Memorial Prize by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for the best article published in any of the three ISEAS journals. He is a co-editor (with Alice Ba and Sueo Sudo) of Institutionalizing East Asia: Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (Routledge 2016). Cheng-Chwee serves on the editorial boards of Contemporary Southeast Asia, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Perspective, and Routledge’s “IR Theory and Practice in Asia” Book Series. He holds an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews, and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Nov
23
Thu
Stress, Strain, and Overwork in Historical Perspectives @ Radcliffe Humanities
Nov 23 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

In this talk on Stress, Strain, and Overwork in Historical Perspective Professor Sally Shuttleworth (Faculty of English Language and Literature) will look at discussions of stress and overwork in both education and professional life in the Victorian era. Although we are clearly living in a radically altered world, there are nonetheless startling similarities in the ways the problems of overwork have been framed and debated, then and now.

Registration is free. Booking essential.

Click here to register for your free ticket.

Lunch from 12.30pm. Talk from 1pm.

This event is part of UK Disability History Month 22 Nov-22 Dec.

Nov
25
Sat
Fabian Society regional conference, Oxford @ Quaker Meeting House
Nov 25 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Fabian Society regional conference, Oxford @ Quaker Meeting House | England | United Kingdom

The Oxford Fabian Society host the Fabian Society regional conference.

Embracing Change: Socialism for a Brave New World

Outline programme

9:00-9:30: registration

9:30: Welcome: Oxford and the Fabian Society. Michael Weatherburn (Secretary, Oxford Fabians)

9:45-10:15: Opening plenary. Kate Green MP (Chair, Fabian Society) and Andrew Harrop (General Secretary, Fabian Society)

10:15-11:15: Panel 1, Taking Our Place: workers affecting workplace change. Annaliese Dodds MP (Oxford East), Melanie Simms (Leicester University), & Caroline Raine (Area Organiser, UNISON). Facilitator: David Yates (Vice-Chair, Oxford Fabians)

11:45-12:45: Panel 2, New Channels of Influence. Shaista Aziz (journalist, writer), Ann Black (Labour NEC), Richard Fletcher (Reuters Institute, Oxford University), Dan Iley-Williamson (Labour city councillor, Holywell & Oxford Momentum). Facilitator: Nick Fahy (Oxford Fabians).

12:45-13:30: Lunch (not provided)

13:30-14:30: Panel 3, The Defence of the Realm. Alex Donnelly (Changing Character of War Programme, Oxford University), Sophy Gardner (RAF, Exeter University), Michael Pryce (Centre for Defence Acquisition, Cranfield University), Chris Williams (Open University). Facilitator: Rosemary Preston (Oxford Fabians).

14:45-15:45: Discussion, Does Socialism Need Patriotism? Facilitated by the Young Fabians.

15:45-16:45: Panel 4, The Local Elections, May 2018. Shaista Aziz (2018 Labour candidate, Rose Hill), Steven Curran (Labour councillor, Iffley Fields), Alex Donnelly (Labour candidate, Hinksey Park 2018), Bob Price (Labour councillor, Hinksey Park), Martyn Rush (Labour candidate, Barton and Sandhills 2018), Christine Simm (Labour councillor, Cowley and Deputy Lord Mayor). Facilitator: Elsa Dawson (Oxford Fabians).

16:45-17:00: Closing remarks, Oxford: Local Politics, Big Picture, 1980-2050. Bob Price (Leader of Oxford City Council, Leader of the Labour Group, and Labour Councillor, Hinksey Park).

Nov
27
Mon
“Vulnerability as a methodological and epistemological intervention: What might it mean to write vulnerably?” by Dr Tiffany Page (University of Cambridge) @ Oxford Brookes University, Gibbs Building, Room G217
Nov 27 @ 12:00 am – 12:00 am

Abstract:
In this talk Tiffany Page will consider what vulnerability is and what it does, and its role within the research process. As part of this she will raise the idea of ‘vulnerable writing’, and consider its possibility within feminist methodological approaches to research. The term vulnerable writing describes the process of explicating and recognising vulnerability in writing. This comes from a core concern in thinking about feminist methodologies and approaches to tensions in research, especially in transnational contexts, in addressing how we might respond to others in ways that allow for the acknowledgement of vulnerability in being faced by events which exceed knowledge, and how we can remain open to alternatives through enabling the space and time to question assumptions and forms of certitude, to return to materials, and to change our minds.

Tiffany Page is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Tiffany’s research is interdisciplinary and include the areas and intersections of vulnerability, gender inequalities and institutional violence. In particular she examines vulnerability as a political, methodological and ethical concept as a means to consider embodied responses to local and global social issues. In relation to gender inequalities in higher education, Tiffany’s research examines practices, cultures and leadership that produce particular institutional responses to staff sexual misconduct and help to sustain conditions in which forms of gender based and sexual violence occur.

N.B. The time of this event is not yet confirmed.

‘Vulnerability as a methodological and epistemological intervention: What might it mean to write vulnerably?’ by Dr Tiffany Page (University of Cambridge) @ Oxford Brookes University, Gibbs Building, room 217
Nov 27 @ 4:15 pm – 5:30 pm

Abstract:
In this talk Tiffany Page will consider what vulnerability is and what it does, and its role within the research process. As part of this she will raise the idea of ‘vulnerable writing’, and consider its possibility within feminist methodological approaches to research. The term vulnerable writing describes the process of explicating and recognising vulnerability in writing. This comes from a core concern in thinking about feminist methodologies and approaches to tensions in research, especially in transnational contexts, in addressing how we might respond to others in ways that allow for the acknowledgement of vulnerability in being faced by events which exceed knowledge, and how we can remain open to alternatives through enabling the space and time to question assumptions and forms of certitude, to return to materials, and to change our minds.

Tiffany Page is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Her research is interdisciplinary and includes the areas and intersections of vulnerability, gender inequalities and institutional violence. In particular she examines vulnerability as a political, methodological and ethical concept as a means to consider embodied responses to local and global social issues. In relation to gender inequalities in higher education, Tiffany’s research examines practices, cultures and leadership that produce particular institutional responses to staff sexual misconduct and help to sustain conditions in which forms of gender based and sexual violence occur.

Life Lessons of a Christian Scholar: ‘Oxford to Moscow 1959: a Chosen Observer?’ @ Upstairs at the Mitre Pub
Nov 27 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm

All welcome, join us at 19:00 for a drink, talk begins at 19:30 followed by Q+A.

Revd Canon Michael Bourdeaux was an exchange student in 1959 to the USSR from Oxford University. In this evening of life lessons from a christian scholar, we will be hear more about his experiences in the Soviet Union and why he founded the Keston Institute: a “voice for the voiceless” communist country churches.

Nov
28
Tue
The Political Economy of Business-State Deals in Indian States @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum
Nov 28 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
The Political Economy of Business-State Deals in Indian States @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum | England | United Kingdom

India has historically performed badly in the World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators and a key objective of the current Indian government is about improving de jure rules around investment decisions so as to facilitate economic growth. Using a novel methodology, I show that de facto deals rather than de jure rules characterise the business-state relationship in Indian states and more deal making is prevalent in states with weak capacity. I argue that reforms initiatives to increase the ease of doing business in India is unlikely to succeed when deals rather than rules characterise investment decisions and when state capacity is weak and prone to capture by the business sector.

Kunal Sen is Professor of Development Economics in the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK, and Joint Research Director of the DFID-UK funded Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) Research Centre. He was past President of the British Association for South Asian Studies, one of the world’s largest learned societies on South Asian Studies. His current research is on the political economy of development. Professor Sen’s recent authored books are The Political Economy of India’s Growth Episodes, London: Palgrave Macmillan and Out of the Shadows? The Informal Sector in Post-Reform India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016. He has also published over 90 articles in journals including Labour Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Public Choice, Review of Income and Wealth, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, and World Development. He won the Sanjaya Lall Prize in 2006 and Dudley Seers Prize in 2003 for his publications.

The South Asia Seminar is co-funded by the Ashmolean Museum, the Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, the Department for International Development and Faculty of History and the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

Me and My Beliefs: Challenges of Identity and Society @ Mathematical Institute
Nov 28 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Me and My Beliefs: Challenges of Identity and Society @ Mathematical Institute | England | United Kingdom

Bishop Libby Lane is Britain’s first woman bishop in the Church of England. In this talk Bishop Libby explores the pathway that brought her to this position and addresses an area of identity not always covered in diversity debates. A panel of prominent speakers joins her in discussing what it means to be a person of faith in Britain today and impacts on diversity.

On the panel:

Jas’ Elsner (Professor of Late Antique Art, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford and project lead on Empires of Faith)

Shaista Aziz (freelance journalist and writer. Founder of The Everyday Bigotry Project)

This event will be chaired by Elleke Boehmer (Professor in World Literatures in English, University of Oxford)

Booking is essential. Please register here for your seat.

There will be a drinks reception following the discussion.

This event is part of the Humanities & Identities series.

Nov
29
Wed
THE INTRIGUING WORLD OF BUTTERFLY BIOLOGY: novel approaches and many surprises @ Oxford Brookes University (John Henry Brookes Lecture Theater)
Nov 29 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Professor Tim Shreeve will explore why different species of butterflies have alternative responses to environmental change.

Butterflies are important indicators of environmental change and their status in the UK and Europe is changing rapidly. Tim’s research encompasses thermoregulation, behaviour, wing colouration, microhabitat use and phylogenetics. This has led to new ways of understanding butterflies responses to land use and climate changes. Whilst this aids their conservation – the more that is learnt, the more unanswered questions emerge.

Tim will also address intriguing questions about the identity of the species populations we are trying to conserve. He will draw on current work identifying separate ‘evolutionary units’ using DNA barcoding – revealing that the identification and preservation of biodiversity is a complex issue that cannot be dealt with by treating species as single units.

Dec
1
Fri
Researching the perspectives and experiences of Australian parents with children in Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) @ Seminar Room H
Dec 1 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Researching the perspectives and experiences of Australian parents with children in Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) @ Seminar Room H  | England | United Kingdom

Research has established that there are improved outcomes for children in OOHC who have continuing involvement and positive relationships with parents and family. This is the case no matter how long children stay in care. Positive relationships between parents, workers and carers is also linked to positive outcomes such as higher rates of restoration and improved child safety. However, little is known about parents’ experiences of child removal and the broader child protection and out of home care service system.
Parent perspectives are especially important as they are currently a relatively silent group in the policy discourse in Australia. Policy and legislative reform in child protection and out of home care is underway or has occurred in most Australian jurisdictions focused on permanency and stability and on improving the long term outcomes of children and young people. All Australian jurisdictions continue to see increasing numbers of children and young people being removed by child protection authorities. There is an important opportunity to learn from parent perspectives and to improve practice and children’s outcomes.
This presentation outlines qualitative research being undertaken in New South Wales, Australia by a collaboration of researchers from the University of Newcastle and a large NGO and OOHC provider, Life Without Barriers. The research used semi-structured interviews and focus groups to understand parents’ experiences of legal and social services during their child’s removal and placement. The findings of this research will contribute to conceptualising and describing family inclusive practice in OOHC. Practitioners in practice, policy, management and research roles in child protection and OOHC systems can use the findings to reflect on ways to develop meaningful relationships with parents of children in OOHC. This may ultimately assist parents and children to maintain positive relationships within and beyond the OOHC context.

Dec
2
Sat
Making Waves – Young Voices Shaping Africa’s Future @ University Church of St Mary the Virgin
Dec 2 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Making Waves - Young Voices Shaping Africa's Future @ University Church of St Mary the Virgin | England | United Kingdom

A panel discussion on radio and youth-led development in southern Africa.

Hosted by Rev’d Charlotte Bannister-Parker and facilitated by Nina Callaghan, Associate Director of the Children’s Radio Foundation.

Panellists:
The Rev’d Canon Mpho Tutu, CRF Global Patron

Mike Wooldridge, Ex-World Affairs Correspondent and BBC Media Action Trustee

Dan Hodgkinson, Lecturer in Development Studies at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, specialising in youth activism in southern Africa.

Max Graef, Founder and Director of Radioactive, working globally to provide communities the tool and skills to set up their own FM radio stations.

Mathapelo Mofokeng, CRF Programme Director and media specialist.

Dec
3
Sun
Being Me @ Holywell Music Room
Dec 3 @ 2:30 pm – 4:45 pm
Being Me @ Holywell Music Room | England | United Kingdom

Change affects us all, through climate, politics, religion, economics and our communities. In fact, all of life is chance but the pace of today is so fast, it can feel like the world is going crazy… and maybe us too. Three highly experienced speakers discuss some practices that help to alleviate stress and rediscover a sense of perspective and wellbeing. There will be music interludes.

Dec
8
Fri
The international community has failed Syria w/@PeterTatchell @ John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre, Oxford Brookes University
Dec 8 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
The international community has failed Syria w/@PeterTatchell @ John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre, Oxford Brookes University | United Kingdom

The annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture, presented by CENDEP and the Oxford Human Rights Festival. Emeritus Professor Nabeel Hamdi is the founder of the MA in Development and Emergency Practice and long term director of CENDEP and one of the most distinguished academics in our field. On his retirement from Oxford Brookes he set up the Nabeel Hamdi Lecture Series. We are honoured to welcome human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell to deliver this year’s lecture.

Peter Tatchell discusses the flaws and limits of international human rights law in relation to the conflict in Syria. He will look at some of the options that could have been used to defuse the war and save lives, but were not actioned by the UN or any countries. This failure points to the need to reform international human rights law and create improved mechanisms for its enforcement.

Jan
15
Mon
Talk by Swiss Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Alexandre Fasel @ Lincoln College, Oakeshott Room
Jan 15 @ 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm
Talk by Swiss Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Alexandre Fasel @ Lincoln College, Oakeshott Room | England | United Kingdom

We, the Oxford University Swiss Society, are delighted to host Mr Ambassador Alexandre
Fasel, who is the new Swiss Ambassador in the UK since September 2017.

He will give a talk on Monday, January 15th, at 6pm in the Oakeshott
room in Lincoln college. This will be followed by drinks in the adjacent
Langford room, where it is possible to interact with him and ask
him questions.

Registration is not required – everyone is welcome.

The OSS team,
Anita, Camille, Claudia, Fabian, Jasmin, Lisa, Matthias, Philippe, Seb,
Tiziana, Vincent

GCF Wk 1 Opening Speaker: Sabina Alkire @ Upstairs at the Mitre Pub
Jan 15 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
GCF Wk 1 Opening Speaker: Sabina Alkire @ Upstairs at the Mitre Pub | England | United Kingdom

For our opening talk this term we are very excited to be able to host Dr. Sabina Alkire who is a world leader on issues of poverty and equality measurement and analysis. A leader in her field she is now Director at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative and holds a professorship at George Washington University.

Everyone is very welcome to join, there will be refreshments from 7pm and the talk will be followed by discussion until 21:00.

Jan
16
Tue
Subaltern Counter-Publics: Dalits and Missionary Christianity in Kerala @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum
Jan 16 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Subaltern Counter-Publics: Dalits and Missionary Christianity in Kerala @ Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum | England | United Kingdom

Missionary Christianity in Kerala, contrary to the received notions in social sciences, offered a new language of internal deliberations to Dalits and provided them agency different from their position in the traditional caste society. The exclusive congregations of Dalits in fact worked as a ‘subaltern counter publics’ offering them new ideas and social practices. It was in this context that ideas of salvation and liberation became significant categories of thought to engage with the caste society and structures of oppression. In the proposed paper the speaker wishes to explore the myriad ways in which Dalits productively engaged with Christianity and transformed themselves. This enables a critique of the instrumentalist interpretation of the Dalit Christianity offered by a dominant section of the historians and social anthropologists writing on Dalits and Christianity in Kerala and India.

Jan
17
Wed
The Naga Serpent in Malay Divination @ Deakin Room, St Antony's College
Jan 17 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
The Naga Serpent in Malay Divination @ Deakin Room, St Antony's College | England | United Kingdom

The naga is a deified serpent that is a major part of the belief system of many South and Southeast Asian cultures. It is a chthonic creature, and is very strongly associated with rain and water. In Southeast Asia it plays an important role in divinatory practices for activities such as house-building, travelling and marriage. This seminar will explore the variety of texts and images relating to the naga as found in Malay divination manuscripts from the late 18th – early 20th century.