Development Studies Immersion Programme – Amali Dias

By Lisa Tilley|January 29, 2023|Uncategorized|0 comments

The Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) has recently partnered with SOAS’ Development department to enable single honours Development Studies students the opportunity to take part in the Development Studies Immersion Programme (DSIP) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM).Last year, for the first term of our academic year (and slightly more), I took this opportunity. I spent the first half of my final year at SOAS studying

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The Indonesian Semester Abroad Experience – Safia Aminah Shaikh

By Lisa Tilley|January 29, 2023|Uncategorized|0 comments

Over the last month of summer, Term One, and the Christmas break, SOAS, partnering with ‘The Australian Consortium for In Country Studies’ (ACICIS), gave single degree Development Studies students such as myself the opportunity to study a semester abroad in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The experience has been incredibly formative, and at times, extremely challenging. However, despite facing bumps in the road, I ultimately found the time spent in Indonesia participating in

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Phulkari – A Traditional Art Form That Empowers Women

By Raiyan Mohammad Syed|November 14, 2022|Labour, Social movements, Women's rights|0 comments

Cross-stitching or phulkari has been around me for as long as I can remember. My nanu (maternal grandmother) was skilled in the art of cross-stitching, and she passed it down to my mother as well. Throughout the various homes I’ve lived in, I’ve always been able to admire fully handmade, meticulous, ornate cross-stitch work whether in wall hangings, cushion covers, or as embroidery on clothing. In a similar way, Manpreet

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Trapped by the System – the Plight of Coca Farmers in Colombia

By Raiyan Mohammad Syed|March 16, 2022|Conflict, Health, Labour|0 comments

A reflection from the recent Drugs and Disorder conference (“image of coca farmers Colombia – Bing images,” n.d.) I had a chance to attend the Drugs and Disorder Conference from Feb 14-16, where I had an opportunity to learn about how drugs affect individual lives in Myanmar and Colombia ; I specifically learned how the demand for the cocaine that comes from the manufacturing process of coca leaves has impacted

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Upcoming Drugs & (dis)order Conference

By Raiyan Mohammad Syed|February 9, 2022|Conflict, Peace|0 comments

Learning from research on illicit drug economies in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Myanmar. Starting from February 14, a group of academics and stakeholders will come together to share the latest research findings on the effect of illicit drug economies in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Myanmar. The conference will focus on the role of drugs in terms of peacebuilding and development in these conflict-affected states. The conference will feature country-specific and thematic analysis,

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Not quite entrepreneurs, not quite excluded  

By 643577|August 19, 2019|Labour, Student blogs|0 comments

This blog was written by postgraduate student Âurea Mouzinho as an assessment for the module ‘Global Commodity Chains, Production Networks and Informal Work’, and selected for the blog by Dr Alessandra Mezzadri. Along the 22 kilometres that stretch between the iconic Largo da Independência in Luanda’s city centre and the special industrial zone in the district of Viana, the presence of informal street vendors is ubiquitous. On any given day,

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Unpacking rural America: What the American meatpacking industry tells us about agri-food chains, monopolies and labour.

By 643577|August 12, 2019|Agriculture, Labour, Student blogs|0 comments

This blog was written by postgraduate student Adam Charles Wilman as an assessment for the module ‘Global Commodity Chains, Production Networks and Informal Work’, and selected for the blog by Dr Alessandra Mezzadri. In the early 1900s American journalist Upton Sinclair published his exposé on the working conditions facing immigrant labour in American industrial cities. His grizzly illustrations were first published in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason in 1905

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Labouring in Labour? Feminists should move beyond condemning rich celebrities in their critical engagement with the surrogate industry.

By 643577|August 5, 2019|Student blogs, Women's rights|0 comments

This blog was written by undergraduate student Maria Felicia Fahlin as an assessed piece of work for the module ‘Issues in global commodity chains, production networks and informal work’, and selected for the blog by Dr Alessandra Mezzadri. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian and super-star rapper Kanye West had their second child by surrogacy in May – a valuable testimonial for an industry that has come under increasing pressure in

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 “I make school uniforms and can’t afford to send my daughter to school”: Could school uniforms offer a unique platform for communicating global inequality?

By 643577|July 26, 2019|Global commodity chains, Labour, Student blogs|0 comments

This blog was written by undergraduate student Amy Rosetta Jose as an assessment for the module ‘Issues in global commodity chains, production networks and informal work’, and selected for the blog by Dr Alessandra Mezzadri. “I make school uniforms and can’t afford to send my daughter to school”. These are the words of a mother in Bangladesh, interviewed in The Mirror, who makes school uniforms for Tesco and Sainsbury’s for

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Vibrant, diversifying civic mobilization challenges the immigration detention system

By 643577|June 6, 2019|Immigration dentention, Migration, Social movements|0 comments

This post is written by Anna Lindley, Senior Lecturer in Migration, Mobility and Development at SOAS. It was originally published as a guest post on the Border Criminologies blog based at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford. See the original post here.  There is a burgeoning research literature critically mapping the spatial and temporal logics of immigration detention and how these systems are increasingly used to discipline and contain ‘unwanted’ mobile populations.

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