D-Econ will be present at the Asia Convening of the Young Scholar’s Initiative of the Institute for New Economic Thinking from 12 to 15, August 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The convening will be attended by a vibrant community of scholars from around 125 countries (full programme here). D-Econ will be at the convening to engage with the issues of Western-centrism and lack of diversity in Economics as a discipline and to discuss possible actions that we can collectively undertake to deal with these biases. We are organising a round-table on this theme at the convening on August 14, 2019 from 10:30 am to 12:15 pm. The panelists for the round-table are Devika Dutt (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Surbhi Kesar (Azim Premji University and South Asian University), Seung Woo Kim (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), and Jenny Tue Anh Nguyen (University of Oxford). 

Economics as a discipline, while claiming to be the objective social-science, has continued to remain dominated by issues and approaches that are mainly Western-centric and various scholars – and consequently their works – have remained heavily under-represented based on their social identities (gender, race, caste, location – to name a few). In this panel, we particularly engage with these two biases that have been historically produced – and are continuously reproduced – in the discipline. This bias is not limited to the discipline, but is also reflective of the broader society that we live in. In this context, we would specifically engage with four aspects of this issue:
(a) What do we mean by the Western-centrism and lack of diversity in the discipline?
(b) Why is there a need to engage with these and move beyond it?
(c) What does diversification entail?
(d) What can we do towards this end?

We invite everyone to join us at the session for an active engagement on these issues. We look forward to an enriching exchange that can collectively take this important initiative forward.

We are also conducting a survey to understand better what conference participants and economists in general think about the state of the profession. You can take the survey here!

Devika Dutt, Surbhi Kesar, Jenny Tue Anh Nguyen, and Richard Itaman from D-Econ will be present at the convening.