Decolonizing Economics
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Decolonizing Economics
Decolonizing economics is an effort to examine and transform the colonial assumptions, institutional hierarchies and unequal power relations embedded in economic knowledge and policy. It challenges the presentation of mainstream Western economics as a universal and politically neutral science, arguing that economic theories developed within particular histories of empire, capitalism, industrialization and European expansion.
The field asks whose experiences are represented in economic models, whose knowledge is treated as authoritative and whose interests are served by prevailing economic institutions. It also seeks to recover economic traditions, practices and theories developed by Indigenous peoples, formerly colonized societies, racialized communities, feminist movements, labor organizations and scholars from the Global South.
Rethinking Economic Knowledge and Education
A central concern of decolonizing economics is the organization of economic education. Conventional curricula often emphasize neoclassical models, mathematical abstraction, individual choice and market equilibrium while giving less attention to colonialism, slavery, imperialism, economic history, institutions, race, gender and ecological limits.
Decolonial approaches do more than add diverse authors to existing reading lists. They question the discipline’s basic assumptions about rationality, development, value, property, labor and progress. They also examine how universities, academic publishing, citation systems and professional associations determine which forms of economic knowledge receive recognition.
Students and educators have promoted pluralist curricula that include institutional economics, feminist economics, ecological economics, Marxist political economy, dependency theory, postcolonial theory and Indigenous knowledge. Decolonial teaching also emphasizes collaborative learning, community engagement and greater awareness of power relations within the classroom.
Colonialism, Empire and Racial Capitalism
Modern economic systems cannot be separated from the histories of colonial conquest, slavery, land seizure and racial hierarchy. Colonial governments reorganized economies around extraction, forced labor, plantation agriculture, mineral production and trade systems designed to benefit imperial powers.
Colonial rule also influenced the development of economic ideas. Concepts of civilization, productivity, property and development were frequently used to portray European institutions as advanced and colonized societies as backward. These assumptions helped legitimize dispossession, coercive labor systems and foreign control over land and resources.
The concept of racial capitalism describes racism as a structural component of capitalist development rather than a temporary distortion of an otherwise neutral market system. Enslavement, segregation, discriminatory housing policies, unequal access to credit and the transfer of wealth from racialized communities have contributed to lasting disparities in income, property ownership and inherited wealth.
Decolonizing economics therefore requires a historical understanding of how wealth was accumulated, how economic institutions were formed and how colonial and racial inequalities continue to shape contemporary markets.
Dependency, Development and Economic Sovereignty
Mainstream development economics has often presented Western industrial capitalism as the model that all societies should follow. Decolonial and dependency perspectives argue that poverty and underdevelopment are not simply early stages on a universal path toward prosperity. They are frequently produced through unequal relationships between wealthy countries and subordinate regions.
Colonized economies were reorganized to export raw materials and import manufactured goods. Many countries remain dependent on commodity exports, foreign investment, external technology and international finance. This structure can limit domestic industrialization and expose economies to volatile prices, capital flight and political pressure from creditors.
Dependency theory examines how wealth flows from peripheral economies toward dominant economic centers. Postdevelopment scholars further question whether economic growth, industrial consumption and Western-style modernization should be treated as universal measures of human progress.
Decolonial approaches define development in terms of emancipation, sovereignty, public wellbeing and social transformation. They emphasize the ability of communities and nations to control their resources, determine their economic priorities and pursue development strategies suited to their histories and ecological conditions.
Debt, Austerity and Global Financial Governance
Sovereign debt is a major focus of decolonial economic analysis. Many countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean entered independence with economies weakened by colonial extraction and dependent on foreign currency earnings. Subsequent borrowing created new forms of dependence on international creditors.
Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have frequently required austerity, privatization, deregulation and reductions in public spending as conditions for financial assistance. These policies can restrict democratic decision-making and transfer authority from national governments to creditors and international financial institutions.
Debt servicing often competes with spending on health care, education, housing, food security, climate resilience and public infrastructure. Austerity measures also tend to impose disproportionate burdens on workers, women, young people and marginalized communities.
Decolonial proposals include debt cancellation, transparent restructuring procedures, democratic control of monetary policy, stronger public financial institutions and greater representation for debtor countries in global economic governance. Some advocates also view debt cancellation as a form of reparation for colonial extraction and unequal trade.
Trade, Taxation and Global Value Chains
Global trade and production networks frequently reproduce colonial patterns in which raw materials and low-cost labor are concentrated in the Global South while profits, intellectual property and financial control remain concentrated in the Global North.
Multinational corporations can use transfer pricing, tax treaties, secrecy jurisdictions and complex ownership structures to move profits away from the countries where production takes place. This reduces the revenue available for public services and development.
Global value chains in agriculture, clothing, electronics and mineral extraction often reward corporations and investors while providing low wages to workers and exposing communities to environmental damage. The unequal distribution of value can be seen in products whose raw materials and labor come primarily from poorer countries while branding, financing and profits are controlled elsewhere.
Decolonial economic policies call for fairer taxation, stronger labor rights, public control of strategic resources, regional industrial development and trade rules that allow countries to build domestic productive capacity. Progressive taxation and measures against illicit financial flows are also presented as essential tools for economic sovereignty.
Feminist Economics, Care and Social Reproduction
Feminist economics challenges the exclusion of unpaid care, domestic work and community labor from conventional economic analysis. Economies depend on the daily work required to raise children, care for older people, maintain households and sustain communities, yet much of this labor is unpaid or poorly compensated.
Women perform a disproportionate share of care work, and austerity policies often increase this burden by reducing public services. When governments cut health care, education, transportation or social protection, families and communities must absorb the work that public institutions no longer provide.
Decolonial feminist economics connects gender inequality with colonialism, race, class, migration and the international division of labor. It rejects the assumption that the experiences of women in wealthy Western countries can represent all women.
Care-centered economic alternatives call for universal public services, shorter working hours, paid family leave, social protection and public investment in care infrastructure. They also propose replacing growth-centered indicators with measures of wellbeing, equality, ecological sustainability and the maintenance of life.
Indigenous and Community Economies
Indigenous economies challenge market-centered definitions of property, value and prosperity. Many Indigenous traditions emphasize reciprocal relationships, collective responsibility, territorial stewardship and obligations to future generations.
Colonial governments frequently undermined these systems by seizing communal land, imposing individual property titles and restricting Indigenous authority over natural resources. Contemporary economic development projects may continue this pattern when mining, energy, forestry or infrastructure projects proceed without meaningful community consent.
Decolonial economic development supports Indigenous ownership, territorial rights, community-defined wellbeing and Indigenous control over knowledge and data. It recognizes that economic success may be measured through cultural continuity, ecological health, collective security and intergenerational responsibility rather than private accumulation alone.
Solidarity economies, cooperatives, mutual-aid networks, rotating savings associations and community wealth-building programs provide related alternatives. These systems seek to retain wealth locally, democratize ownership and direct economic activity toward community needs.
Climate Justice, Extractivism and Green Colonialism
Climate change has intensified debates over colonial responsibility and economic inequality. Wealthy industrialized countries produced a large share of historical greenhouse-gas emissions, while many countries that contributed least to the crisis face the most severe consequences.
Climate finance is often delivered through loans, increasing the debt burdens of vulnerable countries. Renewable-energy projects can also reproduce colonial relationships when foreign companies control land, minerals, infrastructure and profits while affected communities bear environmental and social costs.
The term green colonialism describes energy-transition policies that continue patterns of extraction and dispossession under the language of sustainability. Mining for lithium, cobalt, copper and other transition minerals can threaten Indigenous territories, local livelihoods and ecosystems.
Decolonial climate economics calls for grants rather than debt-creating finance, community control of energy systems, technology sharing, climate reparations and democratic participation in transition planning. It also argues that wealthy countries must reduce excessive consumption and resource use rather than transferring the ecological costs of decarbonization to the Global South.
Data, Measurement and Digital Colonialism
Economic indicators are not neutral descriptions of reality. Measures such as gross domestic product prioritize market production while often ignoring unpaid care, ecological destruction, inequality and community wellbeing.
Decolonial approaches to economic measurement examine how statistical categories were developed and whose priorities they reflect. Alternative accounting systems may include natural wealth, care work, health, social equality, cultural survival and environmental sustainability.
Digital platforms have created new forms of extraction. Corporations can collect data from users and workers across the world while retaining control over infrastructure, algorithms and intellectual property. Low-paid data work may be performed in the Global South while profits and technological authority remain concentrated in Northern corporations.
Digital sovereignty involves community and national control over data, technology and digital infrastructure. Indigenous data sovereignty further asserts the right of Indigenous peoples to govern information concerning their territories, cultures and communities.
Economic Alternatives and Transformative Movements
Decolonizing economics is not limited to criticism. It also examines practical alternatives to extractive and unequal economic systems.
These alternatives include cooperatives, community land trusts, public banks, mutual-aid networks, solidarity finance, participatory budgeting, community-owned energy and public procurement policies that support local enterprises. Community wealth-building strategies use the purchasing power of public institutions to retain wealth within local economies.
Other proposals include universal public services, employment guarantees, debt cancellation, progressive taxation, reparations, food sovereignty and democratic ownership of essential industries. Many approaches emphasize regional cooperation and South-South solidarity as alternatives to dependence on dominant financial and political powers.
Transformative movements connect economic justice with struggles against racism, patriarchy, colonialism and ecological destruction. They seek economic systems organized around democratic participation, collective wellbeing and respect for planetary boundaries.
Challenges and Debates
Decolonizing economics includes a wide range of perspectives and does not offer a single economic model. Scholars and movements debate the role of states, markets, cooperatives, public ownership, industrialization, economic growth and international trade.
There is also a risk that institutions may adopt decolonial language without redistributing authority or resources. Adding diverse readings or symbolic statements does not necessarily alter hiring practices, funding systems, research agendas or decision-making structures.
Meaningful decolonization therefore requires more than representation. It requires changes in who controls institutions, whose knowledge guides policy and how economic resources and political power are distributed.
Conclusion
Decolonizing economics reveals that economic ideas and institutions emerged through histories of empire, slavery, racial hierarchy, patriarchy and environmental extraction. It challenges claims that mainstream economics is universally applicable or separate from political power.
A decolonial approach broadens economic analysis by recognizing multiple histories, knowledge traditions and forms of economic organization. It connects classroom reform with struggles over debt, trade, taxation, care, land, climate, data and sovereignty.
The objective is not simply to diversify economics but to transform the discipline and the institutions it influences. Decolonizing economics seeks systems in which communities can determine their own priorities, resources are governed democratically and economic activity supports dignity, equality, ecological sustainability and collective freedom.
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Foundations and Definitions of Decolonizing Economics
Teaching Economics Through Movements for Justice: Reflections from the Classroom
| Rethinking Economics | March 11, 2026
Describes teaching methods that connect economic theory with social movements, political struggle and demands for economic justice.
Decolonising the Economics Curriculum
| The Economics Network | March 2026
Provides resources for confronting Eurocentrism, colonial assumptions and the exclusion of marginalized scholars from economics education.
Rethinking Economics, the Movement Changing How the Subject Is Taught
| Damian Carrington | The Guardian | February 10, 2026
Examines the international student movement challenging orthodox economics and promoting ecological, feminist, pluralist and decolonial approaches.
Toward Decolonizing and Feminist Pedagogies in Economics
| Various authors | Review of Radical Political Economics | July 24, 2025
Develops feminist and decolonial teaching practices that question hierarchy, objectivity and exclusion within conventional economics classrooms.
Decolonization of Economic Policy
| Christopher Newfield | Independent Social Research Foundation | April 1, 2025
Argues that economic policy must confront colonial histories, unequal knowledge systems and the institutional power behind austerity and extraction.
Decolonizing Development Economics
| Yahya M. Madra and others | World Development | 2025
Critiques development economics for reproducing colonial categories and treating Western capitalist development as a universal destination.
Decolonising Economics: An Illustration of the Informal Economy
| Surbhi Kesar | Exploring Economics | 2025
Uses informal work to demonstrate how mainstream categories obscure colonialism, racial subjugation and diverse forms of economic life.
Economics Teaching Has Become the Aeroflot of Ideas
Criticizes the intellectual uniformity of economics education and the marginalization of competing historical, institutional and heterodox traditions.
Decolonizing Economics 2024
| Union for Radical Political Economics | April 2, 2024
Introduces events and scholarship examining colonialism, racial capitalism and alternatives to orthodox economic thought.
Decolonising Economics and Politics Curricula in UK Universities
| Simon Choat | Studies in Higher Education | 2024
Investigates how economics and politics departments interpret decolonization and why curricular diversification alone may leave deeper hierarchies intact.
The Role of Students in Decolonising the Economics Curriculum
| João Pedro Braga, Kristin Dilani and Carles Paré Ogg | D-Econ | August 2, 2023
Suggests research projects, reading groups and organizing strategies through which students can transform economics education.
D-Econ’s Seasonal Alternative Reading List 2023, Part 1
Recommends scholarship that broadens economics beyond dominant Northern, white, male and neoclassical perspectives.
Standing in the Way of Rigor? Economics’ Meeting with Decolonization
| Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven | Review of International Political Economy | 2023
Challenges the claim that decolonization weakens rigor and shows how mainstream standards privilege particular histories, methods and institutions.
Decolonising Economics Teaching, Part 1: Some Thoughts on the Curriculum
| Ariane Agunsoye, Michelle Groenewald and Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven | D-Econ | April 22, 2022
Distinguishes superficial diversification from deeper changes to economic concepts, histories, assumptions and structures of knowledge.
Decolonising Economics Teaching, Part 2: Some Thoughts on Pedagogy
| Ariane Agunsoye, Michelle Groenewald and Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven | D-Econ | April 22, 2022
Explores classroom authority, student participation and teaching practices needed to support genuinely decolonial economics education.
Post-Colonialists for Decolonising Economics
| Melissa Kennedy | Rethinking Economics | November 8, 2021
Introduces postcolonial perspectives that expose how empire continues to shape economic theory, policy and global inequality.
What Does It Mean to Decolonise the Economics Curriculum?
| Alvin Birdi and Danielle Guizzo | Economics Observatory | June 7, 2021
Explains the difference between adding diverse authors and questioning the discipline’s underlying histories, institutions and assumptions.
Does Economics Need to Be Decolonised?
| Economics Observatory | January 20, 2021
Summarizes competing views about Eurocentrism, diversity, methodology and the political responsibilities of economics education.
Is It Time for a New Economics Curriculum?
| Nick Romeo | The New Yorker | 2021
Reviews campaigns to replace narrow neoclassical instruction with economic history, institutions, inequality and pluralist theories.
Let’s Decolonise Economics Education
| Ali Al-Jamri | Exploring Economics | 2019
Calls for economics courses that recognize colonial histories, non-Western scholarship and the political consequences of economic ideas.
Colonialism, Empire and Racial Capitalism
The Plunder of Black America
| Louis Menand | The New Yorker | August 4, 2025
Reviews historical mechanisms through which Black labor, property and wealth were transferred to white institutions and investors.
Racial Capitalism and the Propaganda of Conservative Economics
| Journal of Black Studies | June 26, 2025
Analyzes how conservative economic narratives conceal racial exploitation and present unequal markets as neutral or meritocratic.
The Enduring Colonialism and Neoliberalism in Africa
Examines Nigeria’s continuing entanglement with imperial finance, multinational capital and neoliberal political-economic structures.
How Washington Blocked Black Homeownership
| The Washington Post | February 28, 2025
Documents discriminatory housing policies that restricted Black ownership and contributed to enduring racial wealth disparities.
A Few Random Thoughts on Capitalism and Slavery
| The Economic Historian | December 12, 2024
Reviews debates over slavery’s importance to capitalist development and the economic transformation of the Atlantic world.
How Slavery’s Legacy Lives in the Racial Wealth Gap
| Harvard Griffin GSAS | January 31, 2024
Connects enslavement, segregation and discriminatory policy to present inequalities in income, housing and inherited wealth.
The Colonial Origins of Economics
| Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven | IDEAs | 2024
Shows how colonial governance, racial hierarchy and imperial expansion influenced the concepts and institutions of modern economics.
Slavery, Capitalism and the British Economy
| Maxine Berg and others | Slavery & Abolition | 2024
Reassesses the contribution of slavery, colonial commerce and plantation wealth to Britain’s industrial and financial development.
Closing the Racial Wealth Gap: A Counterfactual Historical Analysis
| Various authors | RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal | 2024
Estimates how historical discrimination and unequal asset accumulation produced the contemporary Black-white wealth gap.
The Cumulative Costs of Racism and the Bill for Black Reparations
| William A. Darity Jr. and others | Journal of Economic Perspectives | 2022
Calculates the accumulated material losses caused by slavery, segregation and continuing racial discrimination in the United States.
Racial Capitalism and the Dialectics of Development
| Mohsen al Attar and others | Global Constitutionalism | 2022
Explains how development institutions reproduce racialized divisions between wealthy states, subordinate regions and dispossessed populations.
Theorizing Diverse Economies in the Context of Racial Capitalism
| Adam Bledsoe and others | Geoforum | 2022
Brings diverse-economies scholarship into conversation with racial capitalism, colonialism and organized resistance.
Colonial Global Economy: Towards a Theoretical Reorientation of Political Economy
| Gurminder K. Bhambra | Review of International Political Economy | 2021
Argues that capitalism must be understood through colonial relationships rather than as a system that developed within Europe alone.
Black Reparations and the Racial Wealth Gap
| William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen | Brookings Institution | June 15, 2020
Argues that reparations must directly address the immense wealth deficit created by centuries of government-supported racial injustice.
Slavery and Anglo-American Capitalism Revisited
| Gavin Wright | Economic History Review | 2020
Reconsiders the relationship between slavery, cotton production, industrialization and capitalist growth in Britain and the United States.
Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism
| Charisse Burden-Stelly | Monthly Review | 2020
Presents racial oppression as a constitutive feature of American capitalism rather than an external distortion of otherwise neutral markets.
Cotton, Slavery, and the New History of Capitalism
| Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode | Explorations in Economic History | 2018
Evaluates claims about plantation slavery, cotton productivity and their significance to American economic development.
The Economic Impact of Colonialism
| Leander Heldring and James A. Robinson | VoxEU | January 30, 2017
Reviews the long-term institutional and economic consequences of colonial rule in Africa and other colonized regions.
Racial Capitalism
| Nancy Leong | Harvard Law Review | 2013
Explains how racial identities acquire economic value and how institutions profit from racial inclusion, exclusion and commodification.
Colonialism and Economic Development in Africa
| Leander Heldring and James A. Robinson | National Bureau of Economic Research | November 2012
Surveys evidence concerning colonialism’s effects on African institutions, state formation, inequality and economic development.
Dependency, Development and Postdevelopment
Political Economy of Colonialism
| Paris School of Economics | Accessed July 15, 2026
Presents research into colonial state formation, taxation, administration and the lasting economic effects of imperial rule.
The Global Scenario and the Indian Economy
| Prabhat Patnaik | IDEAs | May 29, 2026
Examines dollar power, imperial control over resources and the renewed economic subordination of the Global South.
Development as Emancipation
Reviews African economic thinking that defines development as freedom, sovereignty and social transformation rather than growth alone.
Seventy Years After Bandung: Challenges and Struggles on the Road to a New World
Reconsiders Bandung’s anti-colonial legacy and its relevance to self-determination, South-South cooperation and contemporary economic sovereignty.
Collapse of Development Aid Puts International Cooperation Model on Shaky Ground
Examines aid reductions and the crisis of a development system shaped by donor priorities and unequal international power.
Towards a New Development Theory for the Global South
| Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research | January 14, 2025
Calls for development theory grounded in sovereignty, public investment, social need and the structural realities of Southern economies.
It’s About Solidarity, Not Charity
| Lizzy Davies | The Guardian | January 13, 2025
Discusses efforts to shift authority, funding and decision-making from Northern aid institutions to communities in the Global South.
Economic Development During the Height of Colonialism
| Edward Elgar Publishing | May 16, 2024
Reviews how colonial extraction, forced specialization and imperial trade shaped development and underdevelopment.
Imperialism, Globalization and Its Discontents
Argues that changing forms of globalization have not eliminated imperial domination over law, finance, trade and production.
Dependency Theory
| Various authors | Erasmus University Rotterdam | 2023
Introduces theories explaining how international economic relationships systematically reproduce development in the core and dependency in the periphery.
To Tackle Global Inequality, We Need Better Economic Theories
| Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven | openDemocracy | June 11, 2020
Explains why mainstream theories fail to account for colonial history, unequal exchange and the global organization of production.
Latin America’s Right-Wing Leaders Are Fueling Underdevelopment
| Juan M. Graña | openDemocracy | 2020
Links austerity, deregulation and dependence on commodity exports to persistent inequality and economic vulnerability in Latin America.
Dependency, Regionalism, and Integration Theory for the Global South
| Various authors | European Political Science | July 11, 2019
Reassesses regional integration using dependency theory and the historical experiences of Southern states.
Development Is Colonialism in Disguise
Argues that dominant development projects reproduce colonial notions of progress while undermining Indigenous and community alternatives.
Development: A Failed Project
| Julia Schöneberg | openDemocracy | 2019
Critiques development practice for privileging external experts, measurable interventions and donor agendas over local political transformation.
Western-Style Democracy in Africa Pushes the Neoliberal Agenda
| Damola Adejumo-Ayibiowu | openDemocracy | 2019
Argues that imported political institutions can reinforce externally imposed market reforms and weaken African economic sovereignty.
Debating the Rise of State Capitalism
| Farwa Sial | openDemocracy | 2019
Questions simplistic divisions between state and private capitalism and emphasizes their shared position within unequal global markets.
Turkey Does Imperialism
| Gönenç Uysal | openDemocracy | 2019
Examines Turkish investment, military influence and commercial expansion through the framework of regional imperialism.
Social Liberalism and Global Domination
| Various authors | IDEAs | October 21, 2014
Explores how targeted welfare policies can coexist with neoliberalism, market discipline and continuing global domination.
The Rise and Fall of the Global South
| Prabhat Patnaik | IDEAs | July 21, 2014
Critiques claims that globalization created broad Southern convergence while overlooking low wages, capital mobility and structural dependency.
Debt, Austerity and Global Financial Governance
The IMF Still Functions as a Colonial Debt Enforcer
Argues that IMF lending continues to impose austerity, weaken public services and constrain democratic policy in indebted countries.
Strained Multilateralism and IMF Responsibilities
| Bretton Woods Project | April 14, 2026
Calls for an international financial order aligned with human rights, democratic accountability and the needs of developing countries.
What Is Financial Debt?
| Debt Justice | February 16, 2026
Explains how sovereign debt, creditor power and unequal financial systems shape public spending and economic sovereignty.
Debt, Protest, and the Burden of Post-Colonial Promises in Africa
| Afronomicslaw | December 2025
Connects African debt crises with colonial legacies, broken development promises, austerity and popular protest.
Borrowing from One’s Mother: Ethiopia and the IMF
Examines Ethiopia’s repeated IMF relationships and their effects on policy autonomy, currency reform and social conditions.
Youthquake: How Kenya’s Gen Z Took On IMF Austerity
Analyzes youth-led resistance to taxation, austerity and externally supported fiscal policy in Kenya.
A Faustian Bargain: Africa and the International Monetary Fund
| Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research | May 13, 2025
Reviews how IMF programs restrict public investment, deepen dependency and protect international creditors.
Rethinking Development Financing for Africa
| Afronomicslaw | January 27, 2025
Introduces proposals for transforming debt, taxation and development finance from an African-centered perspective.
Sovereign Debt as Subordination to Global Finance
Frames sovereign debt as a system that transfers policy authority from debtor populations to international financial actors.
Austerity in the Global South
| Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development | November 18, 2024
Documents how spending cuts and regressive taxation transfer the costs of debt crises to workers and marginalized communities.
Kenya’s Protests Are About More Than a Finance Bill
| Fadhel Kaboub | The Guardian | July 10, 2024
Links Kenya’s fiscal crisis to debt service, commodity dependence, structural adjustment and the international financial architecture.
The Global South Is in Its Worst Debt Crisis Ever
| Bretton Woods Project | December 13, 2023
Warns that escalating debt payments are displacing spending on health, education, climate resilience and poverty reduction.
The Colonial Roots of Global South Debt
| Tess Woolfenden | Debt Justice | November 27, 2023
Traces contemporary debt burdens to colonial extraction, unequal trade, financial liberalization and creditor-controlled restructuring.
Keeping Eyes on Sudan, Keeping Eyes on Austerity
Connects Sudan’s political crisis with austerity, debt, economic liberalization and international financial intervention.
The Global Debt Crisis and the Need for Reparations
| Tess Woolfenden | Debt Justice | June 21, 2023
Presents debt cancellation as part of reparative justice for colonial extraction and continuing resource transfers.
The Return of Recession, Debt and Structural Adjustment
Examines the revival of structural-adjustment policies and their consequences for African economies and public services.
The Global Financial Architecture and the International Debt Crisis
| Bretton Woods Project | April 5, 2023
Calls for debt cancellation, fair restructuring rules and greater decision-making power for debtor countries.
IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis Remains Unfit for Purpose
| Bretton Woods Project | October 4, 2022
Critiques IMF debt models for privileging repayment and austerity over development, human rights and climate needs.
Debt Distress and Dispossession
| Tim Zajontz | Review of African Political Economy | 2022
Develops a political economy of African financial dependency centered on dispossession, creditor power and unequal integration.
Reclaim Economic and Monetary Sovereignty
| Various African intellectuals | ROAPE | September 7, 2020
Calls for public control of money, finance and development strategy as alternatives to external dependency and austerity.
Trade, Taxation, Value Chains and Monetary Power
Taxation as Climate Reparations
| Tax Justice Network | November 12, 2025
Argues that progressive taxation, debt cancellation and technology transfers are necessary components of climate reparations.
Exclusion by Design: The Eurocentrism of Labour Migration in Economics
Critiques economic models that value migrants mainly through their contribution to receiving-country production and fiscal accounts.
The OECD’s Stewardship of International Taxation
| Tax Justice Network | May 2024
Criticizes an international tax system dominated by wealthy countries and unable to stop revenue extraction from the Global South.
Delivering Climate Justice Using the Principles of Tax Justice
| Fariya Mager and others | Tax Justice Network | June 2023
Connects decolonial taxation, corporate accountability and public finance with an equitable global climate transition.
The Reconquest of Economic Sovereignty in Africa
| Caroline Cornier | ROAPE | April 25, 2023
Reviews African proposals for monetary reform, regional cooperation and liberation from externally controlled financial systems.
The Santiago Declaration on Public Services
| Global civil-society organizations | Tax Justice Network | January 26, 2023
Demands universal public services funded through tax justice, debt cancellation and the dismantling of colonial economic structures.
Finance for Renewable Energy in Africa Follows Colonial Roots
| Steffen Haag | openDemocracy | February 10, 2020
Shows how renewable-energy finance can reproduce colonial ownership patterns, debt dependence and external control.
How the Cost of Our Clothes Is Measured in Human Lives
| Thulsi Narayanasamy | openDemocracy | 2020
Documents exploitation, unsafe workplaces and unequal value distribution throughout the global garment industry.
The Dirty Side of Development Finance
| Lorena Cotza | openDemocracy | 2020
Examines the social and environmental harms associated with development banks, infrastructure investment and private finance.
Africa–EU Relations and Natural Resource Governance
| Duncan Money and others | Review of African Political Economy | 2020
Examines African agency and continuing inequalities in negotiations over natural resources and relations with Europe.
Transfer Mispricing: The Jewel in Every Multinational Enterprise’s Crown
| Tanya Rawal-Jindia | openDemocracy | 2019
Explains how multinational corporations shift profits and deprive poorer countries of taxation and development revenue.
Imperialism in a Coffee Cup
| John Smith | openDemocracy | 2019
Uses coffee production to reveal unequal exchange, low Southern wages and the concentration of value in Northern corporations.
Outsourcing Exploitation: Global Labor Value Chains
| Intan Suwandi | openDemocracy | 2019
Shows how multinational production networks capture value by exploiting workers in low-wage exporting economies.
The Indonesia–Netherlands Tax Treaty Is One of Indonesia’s Biggest Tax Leaks
| Maarten Hietland | openDemocracy | 2019
Investigates how colonial-era financial relationships and modern tax treaties facilitate continuing revenue losses.
Microfinance Has Been a Nightmare for the Global South
| Ahilan Kadirgamar and Niyanthini Kadirgamar | openDemocracy | 2019
Critiques commercial microcredit and describes cooperative, public and community-based alternatives developed in Sri Lanka.
Mining Giant BHP Pretends to Be Solving Climate Change
| Sebastian Ordoñez Muñoz and TJ Chuah | openDemocracy | 2019
Investigates how mining corporations use climate narratives while expanding extraction and harming Latin American communities.
Reclaiming the Commons Through State Ownership? Maybe Not
| Milan Babić | openDemocracy | 2019
Questions whether national ownership alone can democratize resources without community control and changes in global power.
The Rate of Exploitation: The Case of the iPhone
| Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research | 2019
Traces how value generated by workers in global supply chains is captured by dominant technology corporations.
New African Choices? The Politics of Chinese Engagement
| Giles Mohan and Marcus Power | Review of African Political Economy | 2008
Assesses whether Chinese investment expands African policy choices or creates new forms of dependency and extraction.
China’s Developmental Model Comes to Africa
| Martyn Davies | Review of African Political Economy | 2008
Analyzes Chinese-backed special economic zones and their implications for industrialization, labor and African development.
Feminist Economics, Care and Social Reproduction
Towards Caring Economies?
| Jennifer M. Piscopo and others | Journal of Women, Politics & Policy | 2026
Examines policies intended to recognize, redistribute and support care work within more equitable economic systems.
Debt, Distress, and Defiance
| Kanchana N. Ruwanpura | Feminist Economics | 2026
Uses feminist political economy to analyze debt, household distress and resistance in crisis-affected communities.
Acknowledge and Value Unpaid Care Work in Economic Systems
| Tax Justice Network Africa | March 13, 2025
Calls for public services, progressive taxation and economic measurement that recognize unpaid care and domestic labor.
A Foundational Asymmetry: Gender and Unpaid Care Work
| Naila Kabeer | Oxford Review of Economic Policy | 2025
Explains how economies depend on undervalued unpaid labor that is disproportionately performed by women.
Pluralizing Social Reproduction Approaches
| Alessandra Mezzadri and others | Globalizations | 2025
Connects social reproduction with race, colonialism, migration and diverse forms of labor across the global economy.
Global South Feminists Are Challenging GDP
Describes feminist efforts to replace growth-centered measures with indicators of care, wellbeing, equality and ecological sustainability.
Eighty Years of Broken Promises: Feminist Reflections on the World Bank and IMF
| Women’s Environment and Development Organization | September 5, 2024
Reviews the gendered consequences of austerity, privatization and development policy imposed by global financial institutions.
Women’s Leadership and the Gendered Consequences of Austerity
| Bernhard Reinsberg and others | University of Cambridge Repository | 2024
Investigates whether women’s political representation changes the gendered distribution of costs under austerity programs.
Social Reproduction in the Colonial Global Economy
| Various authors | Political Studies | August 2, 2023
Examines how colonialism organizes reproductive labor, households and the international division of paid and unpaid work.
The Sustainability of Life Approach
| Astrid Agenjo-Calderón | Feminist Economics | 2023
Centers the maintenance of life, ecological limits and collective wellbeing rather than markets and capital accumulation.
What Is Social Reproduction Theory?
| Susan Ferguson | Pluto Press | 2023
Introduces theories connecting capitalism with the unpaid and underpaid work required to reproduce workers and communities.
Feminist Organizations Reject the IMF’s Gender Strategy
| Center for Economic and Social Rights | October 14, 2022
Argues that gender initiatives cannot succeed while IMF programs continue promoting austerity, privatization and regressive taxation.
A Feminist Economics Analysis of Latin American Budgets
Shows how public budgets can reinforce gender inequality by underfunding care, services and economic security.
The True Value of Care Work
Explains how the exclusion of unpaid care from conventional economic accounting hides a major source of social value.
Reclaiming Gender Through Feminist Decolonial Social Reproduction Theory
| Sara Salem and others | Global Constitutionalism | 2022
Combines feminist, decolonial and social-reproduction theories to challenge universalized Northern ideas about gender and labor.
Feminist and Decolonial Economic Solutions for Multilateralism
| Heinrich Böll Foundation | May 20, 2021
Proposes care-centered, redistributive and democratic alternatives to neoliberal international economic governance.
IMF: Stop Promoting Austerity
| Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era | October 6, 2020
Demands an end to fiscal policies that disproportionately harm women, informal workers and marginalized communities.
Decolonial Feminist Economics
| Natalia Quiroga Díaz | Viewpoint Magazine | October 31, 2015
Develops a Latin American feminist perspective centered on care, community economies and the colonial organization of labor.
Women, Social Reproduction and the Political Economy of Care in Africa
| Pambazuka News | March 6, 2013
Examines how privatization, austerity and weakened public services transfer reproductive responsibilities onto African women.
The Unpaid Care Work–Paid Work Connection
| Rania Antonopoulos | Levy Economics Institute | 2008
Demonstrates how unpaid household labor affects employment, poverty, time use and gender inequality.
Indigenous, Solidarity and Community Economies
Indigenous Economic Development and Wellbeing in a Place-Based Context
| OECD | Accessed July 15, 2026
Examines development policies grounded in Indigenous territories, institutions, cultural priorities and community-defined wellbeing.
Community Wealth Building in the Basque Country
| Centre for Local Economic Strategies | June 1, 2026
Describes regional strategies for cooperative ownership, local procurement and retaining wealth within communities.
From Policy to Practice: Community Wealth Building
| Future Economy Scotland | April 2, 2026
Explores how public institutions can redirect land, finance and purchasing power toward democratic local economies.
Whose Solidarity? Race, Colonialism, Economy and the Global South
| Nonprofit Quarterly | December 5, 2025
Warns that solidarity-economy movements must confront colonial histories, racial hierarchy and unequal North-South relationships.
Indigenous Economic Autonomy for a Sustainable Future
Discusses Indigenous ownership, territorial rights and culturally grounded approaches to economic development.
Māori Economies and Wellbeing Economy Strategies
| Various authors | Local Economy | March 1, 2025
Examines how Māori values, collective ownership and intergenerational wellbeing can reshape regional economic policy.
Decolonizing Knowledge Production Through Collaborative Research
| Integration and Implementation Insights | May 7, 2024
Describes research relationships that respect community authority, Indigenous knowledge and multiple ways of knowing.
Indigenous Economic Progress Report
| National Indigenous Economic Development Board | 2024
Assesses Indigenous participation, ownership, employment and continuing barriers within the Canadian economy.
Decolonial Economics: Insights from an Indigenous-Led Initiative
| Various authors | Economy and Society | 2024
Uses Indigenous economic practice to challenge market-centered definitions of value, property, development and prosperity.
Is Your Grandmother’s Susu Savings Club the Key to Community Wealth?
Introduces rotating savings associations rooted in African and diasporic traditions of mutual aid and collective finance.
Solidarity
| Global South Studies | February 24, 2023
Reviews solidarity as a political and economic relationship that can either challenge or reproduce hierarchy and paternalism.
Why We Choose to Use the Term Solidarity Economy
| Caroline Shenaz Hossein and Sarah Pearson | Review of Black Political Economy | 2023
Explains how solidarity economy recognizes cooperative practices created by racialized, immigrant and working-class communities.
Community Wealth Building in an Age of Just Transitions
| Freya Lacey-Barnacle | Energy Policy | 2023
Connects democratic ownership and local wealth retention with socially just energy transitions.
The De-Globalisation of Capital? The Political Economy of Community Wealth Building
| Michael Dennis and Liam Stanley | New Political Economy | 2023
Evaluates community wealth building as a strategy for challenging mobile capital, outsourcing and local economic dependency.
Black Political Economy, Solidarity Economics, and Liberation
| Jessica Gordon-Nembhard | Review of Radical Political Economics | 2023
Connects Black cooperative traditions and solidarity economics with struggles for liberation, reparations and community self-determination.
Community Wealth Building and Clever Tendering
| University of Liverpool Repository | 2022
Examines how public procurement can support local businesses, cooperatives, employment and democratic economic development.
Decolonization of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in South Africa
| Madipoane Masenya | International Journal of African Renaissance Studies | 2022
Argues for educational and economic institutions that recognize Indigenous knowledge rather than treating Western knowledge as universal.
Understanding and Valuing Indigenous Economies Within APEC
| Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation | April 18, 2021
Provides case studies of Indigenous enterprise, traditional knowledge and community-defined economic success across the Asia-Pacific.
Ethical Indigenous Economies
| Dana Kelly | Engaged Scholar Journal | 2021
Presents Indigenous economies as ethical systems organized around relationships, reciprocity, responsibility and collective survival.
Solidarity Economy Roads
| Grassroots Economic Organizing | October 1, 2019
Explores cooperative networks, commons, mutual aid and democratic ownership as pathways beyond capitalist economic organization.
Climate Justice, Extractivism and Green Colonialism
Climate Aid Cuts Are a Disaster for the Global South
| The Guardian | March 5, 2026
Examines how reductions in climate finance transfer adaptation costs onto countries least responsible for global emissions.
Three Steps to Decolonise Climate Finance
| Rethinking Economics | December 1, 2025
Proposes debt relief, democratic governance and direct access to funding as foundations for decolonized climate finance.
Climate Finance for People in the South or Profit in the North?
| Rethinking Economics | November 25, 2025
Questions climate-finance arrangements that prioritize Northern investors while increasing debt and privatization in Southern countries.
Colonialism Hijacks the Energy Transition
Warns that renewable-energy supply chains may repeat colonial patterns of extraction, dispossession and unequal value distribution.
Dismantling Green Colonialism in the Arab Region
Examines energy projects, land control and climate policy through anti-colonial and intersectional perspectives.
We Don’t Want to Be Colonialism 2.0
Investigates community resistance to mineral extraction and infrastructure promoted as necessary for the green transition.
Green Colonialism or Green Transformation?
| Various authors | Political Geography | 2025
Assesses whether low-carbon development redistributes power or reproduces dispossession and unequal environmental burdens.
COP30 and the Global South’s Climate and Energy Demands
Reviews Southern demands for climate finance, energy access, development space and greater responsibility from wealthy countries.
Rethinking Resource Scarcity Through Ecofeminist Decolonial Degrowth
| Various authors | Queen’s University Belfast | 2025
Challenges scarcity narratives that justify extraction and calls for feminist, decolonial and post-growth resource politics.
COP29: Climate Support for the Global South Is Not a Northern Priority
| Le Monde | November 11, 2024
Examines the conflict between Southern financing needs and the limited commitments offered by wealthy governments.
Neocolonial Climate Finance Keeps the Global South Vulnerable
| Transforming Society | August 22, 2024
Argues that loans, investor protections and donor control reproduce dependency within international climate policy.
Degrowth, Global Asymmetries and Ecosocial Justice
| Various authors | ResearchGate | March 18, 2024
Develops Latin American decolonial perspectives on degrowth, unequal exchange and ecological justice.
The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism
| Various authors | JSTOR | 2024
Examines extraction, renewable energy and geopolitical competition through perspectives from the Global South.
Degrowth Requires the Global South to Default on Foreign Debts
Argues that ecological transition is impossible while Southern economies must continually expand exports to service foreign debt.
The Failure of Neo-Extractivism in Latin America
| Various authors | Third World Quarterly | May 2, 2023
Examines why commodity-led progressive development failed to overcome dependency, inequality and environmental destruction.
Dismantling Green Colonialism
| Emanuele Leonardi, Irini Apostolopoulou and others | Review of African Political Economy | 2023
Critiques energy-transition projects that seize land, minerals and infrastructure while excluding affected communities.
Degrowth and the Global South
| Claudius Gräbner-Radkowitsch and Benjamin Strunk | Ecological Economics | 2023
Explores how global dependencies complicate degrowth and require differentiated responsibilities between North and South.
Existing Climate Mitigation Scenarios Perpetuate Colonial Inequalities
| Jason Hickel and others | Lancet Planetary Health | 2022
Shows how mainstream scenarios allocate disproportionate energy use and mitigation burdens between wealthy and poorer regions.
The Anti-Colonial Politics of Degrowth
| Economic Reform Australia | 2021
Argues that Northern degrowth must include reparations, debt cancellation and an end to unequal resource appropriation.
The Extractive Imperative in Latin America
| Murat Arsel, Barbara Hogenboom and Lorenzo Pellegrini | Extractive Industries and Society | 2016
Explains how governments across ideological lines became dependent on extraction for revenue, growth and political legitimacy.
Economic Knowledge, Data and Measurement
Decolonizing Economics
| Manpreet Kaur Kalra | Art of Citizenry | 2026
Explains how GDP, development economics and global dependence reflect historically specific rather than universally neutral ideas.
Politics of Data
Examines how poverty indicators and statistical categories redirect attention away from structural transformation and redistribution.
A Global South Strategy for Evaluating Research Value with ChatGPT
| Robin Nunkoo and Mike Thelwall | arXiv | August 3, 2025
Proposes evaluating research according to national and social relevance rather than relying entirely on Northern citation systems.
Africa Takes GDP Recalculation Campaign to the G20
| Rachel Savage | Reuters | February 3, 2025
Reports African proposals to include natural wealth in national accounts and challenge conventional assessments of economic strength.
Digital Sovereignty and Data Colonialism
| Marcus Vinícius de Freitas | Policy Center for the New South | 2025
Describes data extraction and platform dependence as new forms of colonial control requiring Southern digital sovereignty.
Dismantling the Colonial Politics of Knowledge Production
| Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed | Journal of African Media Studies | 2025
Critiques research structures that extract information from Southern communities while concentrating theory, authority and recognition elsewhere.
Addressing Digital Colonialism
| UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab | August 8, 2024
Calls for equitable data governance that limits extraction, protects communities and strengthens technological autonomy.
Beyond GDP: A Review and Conceptual Framework
| Andrea Jansen and others | Lancet Planetary Health | 2024
Reviews alternatives that measure wellbeing, inequality and ecological sustainability rather than market output alone.
Emancipatory National Accounting: The Nigerian Case
| Michele Bach and others | D-Econ | October 4, 2023
Explores national accounting rooted in Nigerian history and policy needs rather than imported Northern measurement systems.
Decolonising Quantitative Research Methods Pedagogy
| Nicola Zwiener-Collins and others | City, University of London | 2023
Shows how statistics and economic indicators embody political assumptions about value, society and legitimate knowledge.
Decolonisation, Global Data Law, and Indigenous Data Sovereignty
| Jennafer Shae Roberts and Laura N. Montoya | arXiv | July 28, 2022
Connects digital neo-colonialism with Indigenous rights, environmental protection and community authority over data.
Diversification and Decolonization in a Four-Degree World
| Nicolas Gubbay and others | D-Econ | June 7, 2022
Quantifies the exclusion of Global South scholars from climate-economics research and citation networks.
The Coloniality of Data Work in Latin America
| Julian Posada | arXiv | April 26, 2021
Shows how digital labor platforms reproduce colonial divisions between Northern clients and low-paid Southern data workers.
Decolonisation of Knowledge Production and Transmission in the Global South
| Afronomicslaw | October 20, 2020
Examines structural barriers preventing Southern scholars and communities from controlling research agendas and knowledge circulation.
Decolonial AI
| Shakir Mohamed, Marie-Therese Png and William Isaac | arXiv | July 8, 2020
Applies decolonial theory to artificial intelligence, emphasizing power, historical violence, participation and technological justice.
How the Commodification of Knowledge Creates a New Colonialism
| Radmir Khajbakhteev | openDemocracy | February 5, 2020
Explains how intellectual property and commercial publishing privatize knowledge and reinforce global inequality.
The Coloniality of Global Knowledge Production
| Christine Schöpf | Social Transformations | 2020
Describes a global research division in which data is gathered in the periphery while theory and prestige remain concentrated in the core.
How to Make AI Work for People and Planet
| Anita Gurumurthy | openDemocracy | 2020
Calls for public-interest digital infrastructure, democratic oversight and limits on corporate ownership of data.
In a World Order Driven by AI, Rewrite the Rules of Data Capitalism
| Anita Gurumurthy | openDemocracy | 2020
Argues that concentrated platform power and cross-border data extraction reproduce colonial political-economic relationships.
The Flawed Era of GDP Is Finally Coming to an End
| Sophie Charara | Wired | August 3, 2019
Reviews attempts to replace GDP with measures of happiness, wellbeing, community life and environmental sustainability.
Movements, Praxis and Economic Alternatives
Growth Is a Doomed Strategy: There Is a Better Way
| Various economists | IDEAs | June 12, 2026
Calls for a global economic transformation centered on public services, equality, ecological limits and Southern policy autonomy.
Towards Just Taxation for Climate Finance
| Tax Justice Network | October 2025
Brings climate and tax-justice movements together to develop progressive, reparative and democratically controlled sources of finance.
Worldwide Protests Prove the Need for Decolonial and Ecological Economics
| Rethinking Economics | September 15, 2025
Connects popular protests over debt, prices and inequality with demands for decolonial and ecological economic teaching.
The Solidarity Economy Showcase
| Decolonising Economics | December 10, 2024
Highlights cooperative, community-owned and solidarity-based economic initiatives developed by racialized communities in Britain.
A Detoxed Heterodox Praxis
| Lynne Chester | D-Econ | November 9, 2021
Argues that heterodox economists must confront their own exclusions and actively transform research, teaching and professional institutions.
Decolonising Knowledge in the Medium of a Monolithic Language
Examines how the dominance of English shapes participation, authority and whose economic knowledge becomes internationally visible.
Knowledge, Power, and Economics
| Deepak Kumar, Carolina Alves, Aditi Dixit and Surbhi Kesar | D-Econ | August 15, 2021
Introduces a collaborative project exposing how class, caste, race, gender and geography organize the production of economic knowledge.
OurVoices Podcast: Decolonising the Global Economy
| Laura Basu and Freddie Stuart | openDemocracy | June 17, 2020
Discusses colonial economic structures and the movements building alternatives based on democracy, equality and solidarity.
Why Coronavirus Could Spark a Capitalist Supernova
| John Smith | openDemocracy | 2020
Examines how global production, imperialism and unequal labor conditions intensified the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Decolonize Your Pandemic Reading List
| Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, Devika Dutt, Surbhi Kesar and Farwa Sial | openDemocracy | 2020
Recommends scholarship connecting the pandemic with colonialism, race, gender, labor, debt and global inequality.
Is Capitalism Racist?
| Laura Basu and Freddie Stuart | openDemocracy | 2020
Explores the historical and contemporary connections between capitalism, racial hierarchy, empire and organized resistance.
Formerly Colonized People Can’t Breathe, and the IMF and World Bank Are to Blame
| Felogene Anumo | openDemocracy | 2020
Connects racial justice movements with austerity, debt, patriarchy and the power of international financial institutions.
Why Is the IMF Still Pushing Austerity in the Global South?
| Soren Ambrose | openDemocracy | 2020
Criticizes fiscal conditions imposed during the pandemic and calls for debt cancellation and expanded public spending.
Stealth Land Grabs Continued During the Pandemic in India
| Christine Löw | openDemocracy | 2020
Documents how emergency conditions were used to weaken resistance to corporate land acquisition and dispossession.
The Clash of Capitalisms
| Ilias Alami and Adam Dixon | openDemocracy | 2020
Rejects simple state-versus-market divisions and examines competing capitalist formations within a shared unequal world system.
Diversify and Decolonise Your Winter Reading List
| Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, Devika Dutt and Surbhi Kesar | openDemocracy | December 20, 2019
Presents accessible readings that challenge orthodox approaches to development, capitalism, gender and international political economy.
An Agenda for a New Internationalism
| Laura Basu | openDemocracy | 2019
Proposes international cooperation based on labor rights, ecological justice, democratic ownership and opposition to imperialism.
How Can the Global Left Be a Serious Player?
| Sahan Savas Karatasli | openDemocracy | 2019
Examines how transnational movements might organize against capitalism, authoritarianism and the unequal world economy.
Post-Capitalists Must Understand Migration and Global Capitalism
| Hannah Cross | openDemocracy | 2019
Connects migration with colonialism, labor exploitation, border regimes and uneven capitalist development.
Climate Strikes Are About More Than Green Colonialism
| Asad Rehman | openDemocracy | 2019
Argues that climate movements must unite decarbonization with anti-racism, redistribution and resistance to colonial extraction.
Decolonising Palestinian Economies
| Various authors | openDemocracy | February 8, 2015
Examines occupation, economic dependency, restricted movement and efforts to build Palestinian economic autonomy.
