Current Research: Riya Raphael's PhD project aims to investigate and question normative categories and concepts within the study of political economy and economics. She is inspired by writings of postcolonial feminists, Queer-Marxists and deconstructive strands of philosophy that seek to open up concepts and rationalities. Furthermore, she also draws upon the works of Gibson-Graham, Mauss and Polanyi as well as contemporary practices of degrowth, solidarity economy and exchange economies in order challenge the dominant narratives within the study of political economy. The case study is situated in Delhi, India, where she examines the practices of barter-based groups, known as bartanwale, in order to find spaces that visibilise the plurality of the economic systems and highlight ‘Other’ narratives against the dominant narrative of monetary-based and formal economic markets.
Background: Riya completed her Bachelors’ in Political Science from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi in 2013. Then, she completed the first year of the Masters’ programme at Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics. In the fall of 2014, she came to Lund University to pursue M.Sc in Global Studies (major: Political Science). In 2015, she worked with the Degrowth Research group, at the Pufendorf Institute, Lund University as an academic intern, which further led her to write her thesis on degrowth. Her master thesis explored the analytical and conceptual closures within political economy and the degrowth literature. She used Derridian deconstruction along with poststructuralist theories of postcolonial-queer and feminist economics in order to critically engage with concepts within degrowth and political economy.