The Need to Centre Imperialism

Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven is Lecturer in International Development at King’s College, London, the United Kingdom. Her research is centred on the role of finance in development, structural features of underdevelopment, the political economy of development and critically assessing economics. She is a founder and editor of the blog Developing Economics, founder and steering group member of Diversifying and Decolonizing Economics and Chair of the Association for Heterodox Economics. Her research publications include “Beyond the Stereotype: Restating the Relevance of the Dependency Research Programme” (Development and Change, 2020), “Nobel Rebels in Disguise: Assessing the Rise and Rule of the Randomistas” (Review of Political Economy, 2020) and “Financial Subordination and Uneven Financialization in 21st Century Africa” (Community Development Journal, 2020). In the following, she narrates how childhood experiences of health inequality in Mozambique shaped her views and interests in understanding the more systemic features of global inequality—themes she has taken up as a development researcher and critic of mainstream economics.