This Centre for Development Studies conference will look at the range of issues pertaining to famine.

Famines, past and present, are caused and shaped by politics. They are deeply entangled with issues of (in)equality, marginalisation, patterns of violence and other power dynamics, as well as being contexts in which agency, activism and everyday resistance become visible.

This conference will explore a range of topics from how famine is and has been remembered, narrated, normalised, and contested within communities that have experienced it, to how it shapes or is forgotten in national and international discourses.

Professor Alex de Waal has already confirmed his participation as one of the keynote speakers. We look forward to sharing further keynote speaker details and conference highlights in due course.

Participation and costs

A £60 participation fee applies to all participants to help meet organisational and technical costs. Limited subsidised or free spaces are available upon request based on financial needs. Priority for subsidised tickets are limited to students, and free tickets will be prioritised for scholars from contexts where famine is or has recently occurred.

The conference is organised in collaboration with the ERC-funded Everyday Politics of Famine Project (University of Bath, UK) and Wageningen University (Netherlands).

Funding from the European Union for the “Everyday Politics of Famine” project (Project 101165441 — PolFam — ERC-2024-STG) and from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for the “Food, Famine, and the End of Empire in Indonesia, 1940-50” project (Grant VI.Veni.201H.043) have helped make this conference possible.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the organisers only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”