An ethnic majority – Science Spot

A £2.5m Development Research Centre on Inequality, Ethnicity and Human Security is to be opened at Oxford University to look into the challenges facing multi-ethnic societies.

Queen Elizabeth House at the University of Oxford has won a £2.5m award from the Department for International Development (DfID) to establish the Centre. DFID instituted a competition for the establishment of Development Research Centres which would contribute to DGFID objectives, particularly the reduction of poverty, there were 100 applicants for the funding from around the world.

Frances Stewart (image courtesy Stewart family)

According to Frances Stewart, Director of Queen Elizabeth House, who will head the Centre, globalisation and mass migration are leading to more diverse national populations. She suggests that multicultural societies can bring increased potential for conflict, so It is vital to study and learn from those societies where different groups live together peacefully.

Religious and ethnic violence and how to tackle it will be high on the agenda at the new Centre. There are major economic and political causes of such violence, particularly arising from inequality between groups. Researchers in the Centre will explore why some multi-ethnic societies achieve peace and economic prosperity, while serious conflicts arise within other societies. Such conflicts almost invariably result in abysmal poverty. Researchers will also investigate sources of unequal access to economic and political resources between groups.

Religious and ethnic violence are high on the student agenda at the new QEH centre (image courtesy of QEH)

Stewart hopes that research to compare economic and political developments over several decades in both peaceful and violent multi-ethnic societies will ultimately shed light on why ethnicity becomes a salient factor in political developments in some societies but not in others. Researchers will also investigate sources of unequal access to economic and political resources between groups.

Image courtesy of QEH

Scholarships will be available for four doctoral students who will work with overseas partners including institutions in Malaysia, Uganda, Nigeria, Peru and Bolivia. The other establishments involved are The Research Center for Society and Culture (PMB) at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia. The Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The Department of Economics, Catholic University, Lima, Peru in collaboration with The Department of Public Policy, Catholic University, La Paz, Bolivia. The Centre for Basic Research, Kampala, Uganda.

It is hoped that in five years the Centre will have identified major economic policies and political systems likely to contribute to reduced group inequality and the promotion of peaceful multicultural societies. It will also have explored political obstacles to and opportunities for putting these policies into effect, Stewart told Spotlight.

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