CSLS Alumna receives LASA/Oxfam America Martin Diskin Dissertation Award

One of our favourite activities at the Oxford Centre for Socio-legal Studies is to celebrate the ongoing achievements of our alumni.  We recently heard that Diana Dajer received this years' LASA/Oxfam America Martin Diskin Dissertation Award for her PhD thesis. This award is given to a recent thesis that embodies a commitment to the creative combination of activism and scholarship.

Diana Dajer started her DPhil at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in 2015 and graduated in 2022. Her thesis explored the intersection between peacebuilding, citizen participation and technology, using Medellín's participatory budgeting as a case study. She argued that political exclusion from public decision-making processes is one of the main causes of conflicts worldwide and scholarship on the political inclusion of marginalised populations is growing rapidly. Diana’s thesis aimed at contributing to the literature by analysing the influence of participatory budgeting on political inclusion in Medellín, Colombia’s second-biggest city. During her research, she had the opportunity to donate a technology tool that she has created to Medellín's Town Hall. It is still being used today. This was possible thanks to Build Up through their Build Peace Fellows Program, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Colombia's Ministry of Science and Technology and Colfuturo. 

Diana is now working in Colombia as manager of citizen participation in Fundación Corona, a foundation that has worked during the last 60 years to reduce inequality in Colombia by fostering education, employment and citizen participation, working in projects that focus on democratic, social and public innovation.