In November 2019, D-Econ ran a workshop on Decolonizing Economics for Rethinking Economics’ European Gathering in Germany. Above are the problems and solutions that were identified by the students, who had traveled to the gathering from all over the continent. Click here to view the slides that were presented at the workshop.
D-Econ was present at the Annual American Social Science Association (ASSA) Meetings and International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics (ICAPE) Conference 2020 from Jan 3 to Jan 6 2020 in San Deigo, USA. The conferences were attended by several senior and junior scholars in Economics from across the world, particularly by those based in the USA.
D-Econ organised a round table discussion on “Diversity in Heterodox Economics: Radical Solution for an old Problem” at ICAPE 2020. The panelists for the round-table were Hanna Szymborska (Birmingham City University) [Chair], Devika Dutt (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), and Surbhi Kesar (Azim Premji University and South Asian University). It was an interactive round table, where several issues relating to the colonized nature of the discipline, and how lack of diversity is intimately related to this colonized nature, were discussed. Devika and Hanna talked about how these biases are perpetuated in the discipline and how D-Econ aims to be a movement to counter such biases. Surbhi briefly talked about how the process of knowledge creation is a political process and, as a part of that process, how Development Economics came to be a colonized discipline. The session was attended by several scholars, who shared their own experiences and insights on these issues. We collectively discussed how to challenge the prevalent sexism and racism in our profession and the colonial underpinnings of our discipline. We are grateful to the participants who encouraged our initiative and expressed a great deal of interest in being involved with D-Econ!
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This article originally appeared on openDemocracy, as a part of their ‘Decolonising the Economy’ series.
Get a head start on your New Year’s Resolution to read more, by reading some or all of our recommended reads from our Winter 2019 Reading List! As the previous year drew to a close, we took stock of best books published last year. While mainstream economics publications (e.g. see the FT list or The Economist’s list) have been celebrating a very narrow range of authors and subjects (mostly white men based in the US and the UK, writing within mainstream economics), we have put together a more diverse list in terms of background, training, and perspective.
This Alternative Economics list includes authors from across the world, with more varied backgrounds – and writing about more wide-ranging topics from a broader variety of perspectives. Our alternative list also reflects our belief that issues such as structural sexism, imperialism, and the politics of knowledge production are central to understanding economics.
Due to institutional and language barriers we were unable to include as many scholars from the Global South as we would have liked. For example, we would love to read the new book L’Arme Invisible de la Françafrique by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla on the how the CFA Franc continues to constrain the social, political and economic prospects of its member states, but we are still waiting for the English translation.
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