Dr Surbhi Kesar

Her recent and ongoing work focusses on labour and informal economy and the reproduction of the structure of economic dualism in India with high economic growth, thereby critiquing the imaginary of development-as-capitalist-transition; relations between identities and social exclusion in India; political economy of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic; a critical engagement with the social reproduction theory; and approaches towards decolonising the field of economics.

She is working on several projects in these areas. Her work has been published in several journals including Review of Development Economics, Development and Change, Review of Radical Political Economics, Review of International Political Economy, Review of Political Economy, European Journal of Development Research, Canadian Journal of Development Studies. She is also editing a special issue on ‘Decolonising Economic Development’ for World Development and is working on a co-authored book project on ‘Decolonising Economics’.

She received her PhD in Economics from South Asian University, New Delhi, and has been a Fulbright Fellow at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to joining SOAS, she was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.

She is an editorial board member of the Review of Radical Political Economics journal and the Review of Political Economy journal. She is also affiliated with Azim Premji University, Bengaluru as a visiting faculty and as a faculty fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Employment in the University. She is a Steering Group member for the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics initiative.

Informal Economy, Structural transformation and capitalist transition in labour surplus economies, Economic growth and social exclusion, Decolonizing economics.