Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction
Global Book Webinar
As part of its ongoing global book webinar series, the United Nations Economist Network Working Group on Human-Centred Economics and Sustainable Development is pleased to invite you to a special webinar presentation and discussion with the authors of the new book, Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction, on Tuesday, 18 November, from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm Central European Time.
We invite economists, policymakers, practitioners, and members of the wider public to join us for an interactive discussion of this timely and fundamental critique of mainstream economics. Please feel free to share the invitation and registration link provided below within your networks.
About the Book
Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction is authored by Devika Dutt, Carolina Alves, Surbhi Kesar, and Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven.
According to the publisher:
Decolonization has long been debated across the social sciences, but the economics discipline has so far avoided such critical engagement. This book provides a much-needed intervention. Dutt, Alves, Kesar, and Kvangraven uncover the deeply Eurocentric foundations that shape how economists study the world today. These have rendered the discipline ill-equipped to tackle critical questions, such as structural racism, uneven development, the climate crisis, labour relations, and how structural power shapes economic outcomes. Decolonizing economics entails challenging the norms of neutrality and objectivity that economists claim to speak from, while fostering alternative ways of understanding the economy that take seriously structural power relations and contemporary processes of economic development.
Through this work, readers come to understand the political stakes of decolonization and the wide range of scholarship that can help us grasp economics from non-Eurocentric perspectives. By engaging with these perspectives, the book invites an enriched understanding of capitalism and its relationship to exploitation, colonialism, and racialisation.
About the Series
This global book webinar series is part of an initiative organised in association with the UN Economist Network—a community of over 500 economists working across UN agencies, regional commissions, and country offices. Its purpose is to increase the visibility and cross-pollination of work by scholars and practitioners advancing fundamental reform of the pedagogy and practice of economic growth and development.
The series seeks to strengthen a network of networks—linking leading thinkers from research, policy, and practice around the world, including younger and mid-career professionals—who are developing new approaches to economic theory and policy with the potential to accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the human-centred objectives of social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and human dignity and resilience.
We look forward to welcoming you to this important discussion.