Priya Lukka

Profile

I am a PhD candidate exploring approaches to repair and reparations towards alternatives to economic colonialism. As an economist in international development, I have led national, regional and global economic justice work with policymakers, philanthropists and activists on areas of policy and practice, covering debt, trade, tax, global economic governance and climate colonialism. 

My work looks at reparations’ discourses and the experiences of communities fighting for sovereignty in a wider interrogation of the power deployed by the West, through ongoing capitalist recolonisation. This research recognises that reparations can take different forms: from the setting up of a dialogue towards healing and repair to a government process to consult and deliberate on historical actions to its application as a principle of solidarity towards meeting challenges of global justice, there are learnings in each context. They have been pursued by people, groups and communities that have often been agents of change in interrogating structural power relations, and factors that perpetuate racism and the exclusion of particular groups. However, more policies to support their progress are needed and more public education on reparations is required, given its marginality to policy dialogue spaces where it could be hugely relevant. Reparations is capable of providing both disruption to existing ways of conceiving development, and interventions to re-think approaches to global justice.

Research interests

Economic decolonisation, feminist economic approaches

Holistic reparations, sovereignty and structural repair

Anti-racism and anti-imperialism

Qualifications

• MSc. Economics
• BSc. Economics