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Next Society Event: 29th Apr 2026 - Lecture - HYBRID - Immunity on Trial: Ethiopian Courts, Chinese Corporations, and Contestations over Sovereignty - Miriam Driessen
18:30 BST, Ethiopian Community in Britain, 2a Lithos Road, London NW3 6EF - Public event (all welcome)
With the event also being broadcast online, starting at about 19:00 BST.
Set against the backdrop of an extraordinary wave of litigation against Chinese corporations in Ethiopia, Immunity on Trial probes the question of immunity in everyday encounters steeped in highly asymmetrical power relations. Drawing on observations from the courthouse, interviews with litigants, judges, and court support staff, and analyses of case files, Miriam Driessen demonstrates how immunity is debated and delegitimized — or affirmed — by those who fight, exact, grant, or weigh it. From the construction site to the police station, from the registrar's office into the courtroom, she documents tussles over immunity, unraveling the politics of dignity on which they are founded.
Miriam Driessen is a Departmental Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford. Miriam completed her doctoral studies at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, in 2015. She went on to a role as a visiting research fellow at Peking University before returning to the University of Oxford as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and Jesus College, and subsequently as a postdoctoral associate at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Please reserve your place soon to avoid disappointment.
Unable to attend the event in person? Register for an online ticket to be sent a link to a Zoom broadcast of the live event.
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Immunity on Trial: Ethiopian Courts, Chinese Corporations, and Contestations over Sovereignty by Miriam Driessen Publisher : University of California Press, February 2026 ISBN : 9780520425453 (hardcover), UK RRP £80 ISBN: 9780520421295 (paperback), UK RRP £30 The book is an OPEN ACCESS publication and can be downloaded as an EPUB or PDF free of charge |