Flora Hajdu Email and Phone Number

I am Professor and Chair of the research subject Rural Development in the Global South, one of two specialisations in our main research subject Rural Development at the Division or Rural Development. In this role I lead the Rural Development in the Global South group of around 20 teachers and researchers, who are doing a wide range of interdiscipliary critical social science research across the Global South. I divide my time between this leadership role, my own research on several different projects, and lecturing and supervision at BSc, MSc and PhD level.My research has focused on understanding the perspectives of rural populations in southern and eastern Africa and the social and material effects of development interventions and protracted crises on their lives and livelihoods. I want ot understand why interevensions and policies so often fail to improve the situation of rural people, and especially of the most marginalised groups. To do this I interrogate the mismatch between how people perceive their own local situations and how people who construct interventions and policies view rural populations and their situations, I investigate myths and narratives regarding rural people and their relationship to and effects on their environments, and underlying resons for such myths. So far I have focused on agricultural interventions, social protection policy, cash transfers and carbon forestry interventions as well as effects of AIDS and other health crises in South Africa, Malawi, Lesotho, Uganda and Tanzania. I have a background in interdisciplinary studies with a basis in critical social sciences, including Geography, Anthropology, Development Studies, Earth Sciences and Environmental History.