OVERVIEW

Dinah’s research lies at the intersection of the anthropology of development, moral economy and global capitalisms. Her books include In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility (Stanford University Press, shortlisted for the Society for Economic Anthropology Book Prize); and The Anthropology of Corporate Social Responsibility (Berghahn) (with Catherine Dolan). She is co-editor of  Bristol University Press’ Business, Finance and International Development book series; and co-founder of the Centre for New Economies of Development. I am currently working (with Sarah-Jane Phelan and Jenny Hewitt) as lead investigator on a project funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund .

Particular areas of focus include:

• The role of business in development
• Corporate social responsibility and ethical trade
• Labour and global production networks
• Environmental and social governance, sustainability and climate change
• Extractive industries and energy, mining and oil
• Youth enterprise, entrepreneurialism, and unemployment labour
• Gender entrepreneurship and economic empowerment
• Inclusive markets and bottom of the pyramid business 
• The role of business in public health and the political economy of HIV/Aids
• Education, responsibility and wellbeing

Regional expertise: Sub-Saharan Africa, UK, Global

My research has been funded by grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Development Studies Association, the Research Council of Norway, the Higher Education Innovation Fund and a Sussex Knowledge Exchange and Policy Fellowship.  

RECENT PROJECTS

Crisis of Care in the Classroom: The Afterlife of the Pandemic in UK Primary Schools

I have worked on a number of projects, most recently as principle investigator in charge of a small team of post-doctoral researchers on a project funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund conducting ethnographic research on crises of care, labour and wellbeing in UK primary schools in afterlife of the Covid-19 pandemic (with Dr Jenny Hewitt and Dr Sarah-Jane Phelan).  We went on to build on this research with a Sussex Knowledge Exchange and Policy Fellowship - Crisis of Care in the Classroom: The Afterlife of the Pandemic in UK Primary Schools - which focused on taking our findings forward to influence critical public debate and policy on primary education, crises of teacher retention & recruitment, and school funding through:

• 3-part podcast series
• Media engagement eg. Times Edication Supplement and House of Commons Parliamentary magazine for MPs, House: "Turning Around Teaching: How to Boost Recruitment and Retention". 
• Policy briefs and evidence submissions to the Public Affairs All Party Parliamentary Group Education Committee on teacher recruitment, training and retention: written evidence submitted to committee

Energethics: Expanding the Anthropological Understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility

While in a very different context, region and sector, similar themes of responsibility, accountability and governance underpinned this 5-year project, on which I worked within a multi-country team, leading the UK component  funded by the Norwegian Research Council.  Across 7 countries on 5 continents, the team explored ethics and corporate responsibility in Nordic oil, gas and energy companies operating abroad offering one of the few large-scale longterm comparative investigations into corporate responsibility and accountability: Energethics: Expanding the Anthropological understanding of corporate social responsibility,

SUPERVISION:

I have supervised several DPhil and Mphil students in the UK, Europe and South Africa including 4 with full ESRC studentships and mentored post-doctoral researchers and junior colleagues.

I am interested in supervising doctoral students working on business & development; ethical economies, extractive industries, corporate accountaibility, social responsibility; youth education, employment, and entrepreneurship; gender, markets, and the informal sector; global production networks and labour; HIV/Aids; sustainability, climate change and global governance; Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Current and recent doctoral students & post-doctoral fellows:

• Nnenna Onitilo - Financial Inclusion, Gender and Development in Nigeria: A case study from market traders in Abuja
• Rachel Claydon - Materilaising & marketising the 'good' feeding mother: Lived experiences of commercial childrens foods among UK mothers 
• Jodie Le Marrec - The forgotten crisis of microfinance for disabled households in Cambodia
• Kopo Veronicah Oromeng (University of Delaware) - Decarbonizing a critical enery assemblage: Implications of sustainability transformations in South African Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) mining on local communities
• Asad Abbasi - Dying of the Light: Electricity, Extraction and Global China in Pakistan
• Swapnil Gautam Gedam (Commonwealth Visiting Scholar) - Music & Politics of Caste: Dalit Voices of Liberation in Urban Sonicscape Of Mumbai
• Dr Ishrat Khan Barsha - Women's sexual agency in Dhaka's professional middle class: Nuances of negotiation in everyday marriage
• Dr Sarah-Jane Phelan - Calculating Care: Ways of working through (economic) insecurity in a Ougadougou Market
• Dr Jessica Sklair - From philanthropy to impact investment: Brazilian & British Wealth Elites in International Development  [ESRC Postdoc Fellow]
• Dr Deniz Seebacher - Incorporating Sustainability. An Ethnography of Moral Economies in a Turkish Apparel Corporation  [Post-doctoral Fellow]

I also supervise Masters students for their summer dissertation, and undergraduates in Anthropology and International Development undertaking a year-long thesis.