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.”
My academic interests lie in the history of medicine and medical practices in Zimbabwe.
Choosing medical history was influenced by my rural upbringing in remote Gokwe district where malaria and trypanosomiasis used to present special challenges to its inhabitants. In spite of the colonial perceptions of Gokwe district as a hostile and diseased environment, as young children growing up in the district we never viewed our district as such. We still hunted in the bush, herd cattle, walked several miles each day to and from our rural school and slept during the night without mosquito nets. Deaths from malaria were given different explanations. It was often said people were becoming ill because of eating raw greens from the fields such as watermelons and mealie cobs. The causal effect between mosquito bites and malaria was blurred in the local indigenous knowledge systems. I was also exposed to ethnic competition and ‘Othering’ with those who considered themselves autochthonous societies. This experience moulded not only my academic interests but also the way I perceive reality.
History of medicine in Zimbabwe