Surbhi Kesar

I am a development and political economist, who currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Department of Economics at SOAS University of London. My 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; relation between identities and social exclusion in India; political economy of crises and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic; a critical engagement with the social reproduction theory; and approaches towards decolonising the field of economics. My research is embedded in Marxian Political Economy and South-centric critical frameworks of economics. 

I received my PhD in Economics from South Asian University, New Delhi in 2020, and have been a Fulbright Fellow at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to joining SOAS, I was working as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.

I am an associated editor for Oxford Developoment Studies journal and an editorial board member of the Review of Radical Political Economics journal and have previously also served on the editorial board of the Review of Political Economy journal. I am a Steering Group member for the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics initiative. I am also a featured economist for the International Economic Association.

You can find my CV here.