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.”
The 'Montubio' ethnic identity has recently gained notoriety in Ecuador. This paper analyses how this identity emerges from and falls within Ecuador's construction of 'mestizaje' or mixture as a tool for national integration. Given the exclusionary and limited nature of mestizaje in Ecuador, it is argued that as far as Montubios are uncritically constructed in relation to such mestizaje, they cannot serve as a progressive hybrid identity able to overcome essentialisms and existent ethnic structures. This paper starts by briefly reviewing how mestizaje has been constructed in Ecuador and then examines how the Montubio identity emerges from this mestizaje. It then explores different ways in which mestizaje may be conceptualized, and examines how these different models disguise or address power dynamics within heterogeneous populations. It concludes by briefly noting how 'translocational positionality' might provide a way to conceptualize the most progressive promises of mestizaje that Montubios might access.