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.”
Dr Dilar Dirik, Joyce Pearce Junior Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, has launched a new podcast series titled Women & War: A Feminist Podcast, available on Spotify and SoundCloud.
Women in regions affected by war and forced displacement are highly visible in media accounts. Yet, their resistance against different forms of violence – from so-called domestic abuse to large-scale state violence – often goes unrecognised. Women & War: A Feminist Podcast is a platform to learn about women’s struggles for liberation, justice and peace. The podcast amplifies critical contemporary feminist work in the field of war, violence, colonialism, and forced migration.
Today, unprecedented amounts of funding are allocated to gender issues in the world of conflict and security. However, as feminists have pointed out for decades, gender is not something to ‘also consider’ during times of war and conflict. Since ancient times, gender has been a primary organising principle in war, militarism, occupation, and political violence.
The invited guests – who are engaged feminist academics and activists - speak about legacies of genocide, femicide, occupation, and invasion in the context of places like Armenia, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Palestine, Pakistan and beyond. In addition to providing background and sharing knowledge, the guests reflect on their own scholarship and discuss contemporary knowledge production on women’s resistance. Together, guest and host counter Orientalist and patriarchal narratives and instead centre women’s practices of resistance and collective struggle, past and present. While offering historical context to contemporary wars and conflicts in the region, Women & War seeks to be a space to build transnational feminist solidarity.
Dr Dilar Dirik is a political sociologist and Junior Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre and Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.
This project has been made possible through the University of Oxford’s Public Engagement with Research Fund.