The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
This project explores the lived experience of temporary accommodation for refugees in the Middle East and Europe. Led by Dr. Tom Scott-Smith at the Refugee Studies Centre, it brings together experts in forced displacement, archaeology, anthropology, and architecture to study refugee shelter across six countries. The project is a partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum and has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK.
The project has four main aims: First, to produce an inventory that records and categorizes the diverse range of emergency accommodation in situations of forced migration. Second, to produce detailed portraits of emergency shelter through ethnographic writing, photographic essays and film. Third, to assess the social, cultural, political and legal implications of different emergency shelters. And fourth, to inform the design of successful policies on shelter and displacement through discussion with humanitarian and governmental agencies.
To achieve these aims, the project will conduct multi-sited fieldwork throughout 2017 and early 2018 in order to capture the full range of emergency accommodation generated by the Syrian refugee crisis. Research will take place in six countries: Jordan, Lebanon, Greece, Italy, Germany and France, with sites in these countries capturing the most creative and diverse range of accommodation types.