The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.
David’s research interests lie in the political economy of crime and violence in South Asia. He focuses particularly on Bangladesh, where he has worked and researched since 2010. His doctoral ethnography explored the urban political order of Dhaka city through groups of labourers living on the streets of the country’s largest market. Analyses of gangsters, labour politics and destitution have been published in Development and Change, The European Journal of Development Research, and Environment and Urbanization. This study continued through an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), examining the cases of municipal sweepers and street level extortion rackets, and is currently being worked into a book.
Recent projects under the Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) Research Centre analyse the significance of capital cities to authoritarian states, and contemporary changes in political coalitions and intra-state power in Bangladesh. Work from this has been published in Modern Asian Studies and Contemporary South Asia. David has also worked as a programmes manager and consultant in the development sector in Bangladesh, holds an MSc from the London School of Economics, and PhD from the University of Bath.
