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This episode comes from the African Cities Research Centre, based at the Global Development Institute.

Urban reform coalitions can play a critical role in building inclusive, sustainable and productive cities. Made up of diverse stakeholders who collaborate to achieve common goals, these coalitions can work to strengthen relationships between disadvantaged groups and influential state/non-state actors. This collective action can be powerful in challenging socioeconomic inequality and enabling marginalised groups to capitalise on political opportunities for inclusive reform.

So where do researchers come in?

This podcast episode is a recording from a webinar ACRC held in September 2023 to discuss the role that academics, action researchers and professionals can play in fostering the formation and functioning of urban reform coalitions. In doing so, they wanted to give special focus to how knowledge and evidence can catalyse urban reform coalitions.

Chaired by ACRC research associate, Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael, the webinar comprised presentations from three panellists, who talked about their experiences of working with urban reform coalitions and shared valuable lessons learned, followed by a question-and-answer session.

Shalini Sinha is the urban Asia lead and home-based work sector specialist at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She discusses the “I, Too, am Delhi” campaign, including the importance of having multi-sectoral partnerships and an intersectional perspective, along with the need to “demystify the technical”.

Catherine Sutherland is an associate professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She shares her experiences and lessons from co-producing knowledge with disadvantaged groups in the Palmiet Catchment Rehabilitation Project, aimed at building flood resilience in Durban, South Africa.

Paul Mukwaya is coordinator at the Urban Action Lab and ACRC's city lead for Kampala. He talks about his experiences as part of the Just City and Informality Working Group, led by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Uganda.

Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a research associate at the African Cities Research Consortium, supporting research across the crosscutting themes of finance, gender and climate change.
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The latest episode of our podcast brings together Sam Hickey, President of the Development Studies Association UK, Heloise Weber, President of the Development Studies Association Australia and special guest Winnie Mitullah from IDS, University of Nairobi. The three discuss the relevance of development studies in the current climate.

Sam Hickey is President of the Development Studies Association UK. He is Head of the Global Development Institute, Professor of Politics and Development and Deputy CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium. His research examines the links between politics and development, including issues of state capacity and elite commitment, natural resource governance, social exclusion and adverse incorporation, citizenship participation and NGOs and the politics of social protection and social justice.

Heloise Weber is President of the Development Studies Association Australia. She is Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, Australia.  Her research addresses how knowledge-production and representation shape and justify framings of 'development' at a macro-political level, and what this means for people

Winnie Mitullah is a Research Professor of Development Studies at the Institute for Development Studies, The University of Nairobi (IDS) and UNESCO UNITWIN Chair. She has researched and consulted in the areas of governance, in particular in the area of provision and management of urban services and the role of stakeholders in development.


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In this episode Elisa Gambino is joined by Kathy Dodworth. They discuss Kathy’s new book, Legitimation as Political Practice, her transition from working at an NGO to academia and the idea of the non-state
Dr Kathy Dodworth is a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for African Studies. Her current fellowship critically re-examines contemporary community health work in Kenya. She recently published her book Legitimation as Political Practice: Crafting Everyday Authority in Tanzania, which combines ethnographic fieldwork with theoretical innovation, reworking legitimacy as a collection of practices.
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Legitimation as Political Practice: Crafting Everyday Authority in TanzaniaKathy Dodworth Follow Kathy on TwitterDr Elisa Gambino joined GDI in 2023 as Lecturer in Global Development, with a focus on Global Political Economy. In January 2024, she will begin a three-year Hallsworth Political Economy Fellowship titled “African hubs, Chinese trade, and global circulation,” which focuses on the networks of Chinese companies and entrepreneurs increasingly engaged in cross-border exchanges in West Africa.
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People in South Sudan have experienced decades of forced displacement and cross-border mobility, resulting in families split across the country and neighbouring Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. According to the United Nations as of 2021, more than four million South Sudanese citizens were displaced either internally or internationally.
Samuel Hall in collaboration with Research and Evidence Facility (REF) explored the experiences of displacement, return, and reintegration among South Sudanese refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). This podcast, based on the report released by Samuel Hall and REF, explores the experiences of displacement, return and reintegration among South Sudanese refugees, returnees, and internally displaced persons. Through their stories, expert insights and our analysis, we understand key systemic and discuss potential durable solutions for sustainable reintegration.
With thanks to, Chris Siracuse, Devyani Nighoskar, Tanya Kathuria, Nassim Majidi and Joseph Malish.
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 In this episode Tanja Müller talks to Lisa Ann Richey about her career and her recent book, Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development. 
Lisa Ann Richey is Professor of Globalisation and Development Studies at the Department of Management, Society and Communication Copenhagen Business School. Her research looks at values and international politics of humanitarianism. 
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Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of DevelopmentLisa Ann Richey Follow Lisa on Twitter Tanja Müller is Professor of Political Sociology at the Global Development Institute. Tanja has recently completed a research project on the potential role of the business sector in refugee integration andhumanitarian response. She is currently the Principal Investigator of an ESRC-funded project on transnational lived citizenship and political belonging in the Horn of Africa. She is also developing a new cooperation with Prof Adriana Kemp from Tel Aviv University on inscribing mobile lives into urban peripheries. 
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In this episode Tom Goodfellow and Pritish Behuria discuss Tom's career and his new book, Politics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa.

Despite the rise of global technocratic ideals of city-making, cities around the world are not merging into indistinguishable duplicates of one another. In fact, as the world urbanizes, urban formations remain diverse in their socioeconomic and spatial characteristics, with varying potential to foster economic development and social justice. In his book, Tom Goodfellow argues that these differences are primarily rooted in politics, and if we continue to view cities as economic and technological projects to be managed rather than terrains of political bargaining and contestation, the quest for better urban futures is doomed to fail. Dominant critical approaches to urban development tend to explain difference with reference to the variegated impacts of neoliberal regulatory institutions. This, however, neglects the multiple ways in which the wider politics of capital accumulation and distribution drive divergent forms of transformation in different urban places.

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies & International Development at the University of Sheffield.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change.
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Politics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa.Tom GoodfellowFollow Tom on TwitterPritish Behuria is Senior Lecturer in Politics, Governance & Development at the Global Development Institute. His research operates at the intersection of development studies, comparative politics and international political economy. He is a political economist, taking an interdisciplinary approach to studying the challenges associated with late development under 21st Century Globalisation.
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