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.

We will add a full programme covering both days of this conference to this page soon. Please check regularly for updates.

Call for papers

The deadline for submissions is Friday 14 August 2026

We welcome papers that include, but also move beyond, institution-driven analyses to highlight everyday forms of agency, moral economy, and political meaning-making, as well as past and current national and international activist efforts to shift the politics of famine.

How and if famines are remembered and memorialised are also often deeply political, with famine histories politicised even centuries later. We invite a broad range of papers on past and present famines that will deepen our understanding of the politics of famine.

Themes and scope

We welcome proposals that engage with the politics of famine in the broadest sense. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Political causes of famine
Use of hunger and starvation as a political or military tool
Neglect and denial during and after famines
Norms of restraint and patterns of violence that result in famine
Activism against famine at local, national and international levels, including everyday acts of resistance
Media and social-media narratives, including contestation and blame
The politics of humanitarianism, diaspora giving, moral economies, and community support networks
Rituals, death practices, and grief during or after famine
Oral histories, storytelling, artistic expression, and cultural memory
Comparative or cross-regional perspectives on famine-affected communities
Methodological and ethical reflections on researching famine, memory, or humanitarian politics
Politicisation of famine memory

Language

We are eager for the conference to be as inclusive as possible. While most of the conference will be in English, we welcome papers in languages spoken in contexts that are currently or have recently experienced famine. This includes Arabic and Somali.

Submission guidelines

Please submit an abstract of 200–250 words outlining your core argument, methodological approach, and contribution to the conference themes, as well as a short bio (around 100 words).

Submissions must include: name, affiliation, contact details, and presentation format preference.

Complete our form to submit your abstract and bio

In addition to traditional papers, we are also open to creative, multimedia, or practice-based approaches and we encourage producers to contact the conference organisers.

Participation and costs

A £60 participation fee applies to all participants to help meet organisational and technical costs.

Limited free or subsidised spaces are available upon request, based on financial needs. Priority for these spaces will be given to 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.”