The Laudato Si’ Research Institute, based at Campion Hall, and the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life are jointly hosting an international academic conference in Oxford, 16-18 May


The conference will provide analysis of contemporary issues in land use, ecology and sustainability from the perspective of ethics, philosophy, and world religions, with a special emphasis on the Catholic social tradition. It will relate this to contemporary political and societal trends such as nationalism, protectionism, sustainable development, and ecological civilisation.

China Centre event, sponsored by VenCap

Speaker: Professor David Gann, CBE, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Development and External Affairs and Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneuriship, Said Business School, University of Oxford

Visiting Fulbright Professor, Alison Brysk, and Andrea den Boer (University of Kent) will discuss how global trends engender women’s rights abuse, and how we can respond.

How do women claim rights against violence in India and with what consequences? In this talk, Poulami Roychowdhury, Assistant Professor at McGill University, will provide a unique lens on rights negotiations in the world’s largest democracy. In her book Capable Women, Incapable States, Roychowdhury observes how women navigate the Indian criminal justice system, and finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves.

Air pollution is now the world’s leading environmental risk factor. It reportedly causes 5 million deaths globally, India and China alone contributing 1.2 million deaths each. With increased inconveniences and suffering on account of the poor quality of outdoor and indoor air in India, it is imperative to look at how air is impacted by our activities, how it is regulated, and how it affects spaces and bodies across class and gender.

In the last thirty years, the developing world has undergone tremendous changes. Overall, poverty has fallen, people live longer and healthier lives, and economies have been transformed. And yet many countries have simply missed the boat. Why have some countries prospered, while others have failed? Stefan Dercon argues that the answer lies not in a specific set of policies, but rather in a key ‘development bargain’, whereby a country’s elites shift from protecting their own positions to gambling on a growth-based future.

In April 2012, the escape of a Chinese dissident from house arrest in Dongshigu Village, Linyi City to the US embassy in Beijing put the Obama administration’s diplomacy skills to the test. Chen Guangcheng is a human rights organiser whose activism around China’s family planning policies landed him in prison between 2006 and 2010. After he was released, Chen Guancheng and his family were placed under house arrest.