Dr Kalpana Wilson — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

Kalpana Wilson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences. She works on critical international development and social justice. Her research explores questions of race/gender, labour, neoliberalism, and reproductive rights and justice, with a particular focus on South Asia and its diasporas.

She has a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Sussex, and an MA in Area Studies (South Asia) and a PhD in Political Economy from SOAS, University of London. She has previously taught at the London School of Economics (LSE) and at SOAS.

She is the author of ‘Race, Racism and Development: Interrogating History, Discourse and Practice’ (Zed Books, 2012) and has published widely on race, gender, international development, women’s agency and rural labour movements.

Research

Research interests

Racism, racialisation and international development
Diasporas in international development
Gender, labour and globalisation
Gender and social movements
Transnational feminism
Visual representations in development
Reproductive rights and reproductive justice
Population discourse, migration and climate justice

Research overview

My research has explored the previously under-researched question of racism and racialisation in international development. I have examined the relationships between race, capital, embodiment and resistance in transnational historical and contemporary contexts. I put forward an approach which underlines the materiality of race in development as well as its discursive aspects, combining elements of postcolonial, critical race and feminist theory with political economy. I explore themes including global population policies, reproductive justice, (anti-)fascism and racialised diasporas in development.

Secondly, building upon long-term research on rural labour movements in India, I have looked at contesting understandings of women’s agency, in the contexts of neoliberal development interventions, and social movements and collective organising. I have also examined emerging representations of women and adolescent girls in the Global South as hyper-industrious potential entrepreneurs and how this ‘new’ set of gendered and racialised representations is linked to an intensification and extension of women’s labour under neoliberal globalisation.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research.

Teaching

Teaching modules

Methods, Analysis and Techniques (GGPH056S5)
Race, Environment and International Development (SSGE006S6)
Borders, Migration and Development (SSGE124S5)

Publications

Article

Wilson, Kalpana (2023) From dematerialising race to distorting decoloniality: development-as-imperialism and Hindu supremacy. Global Discourse ISSN 2043-7897.
Wilson, Kalpana and Ismail, Feyzi and Kharel, S. and Dahal, S. (2023) Women construction workers in Nepal: collectivities under precarious conditions. Gender, Work and Organization ISSN 0968-6673.
Wilson, Kalpana (2019) At once the saviours and the saved: ‘Diaspora Girls’, dangerous places and smart power. Antipode 51 (5), pp. 1664-1683. ISSN 0066-4812.
Shaw, A. and Wilson, Kalpana (2019) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the necro-populationism of ‘climate-smart’ agriculture. Gender, Place and Culture ISSN 0966-369X.
Wilson, Kalpana (2018) For reproductive justice in an era of Gates and Modi – the violence of India’s population policies. Feminist Review 119 (1), pp. 89-105. ISSN 0141-7789.
Wilson, Kalpana (2017) In the name of reproductive rights: race, neoliberalism and the embodied violence of population policies. New Formations (91), pp. 50-68. ISSN 0950-2378.
Wilson, Kalpana (2017) Re-centring ‘Race’ in development: population policies and global capital accumulation in the era of the SDGs. Globalizations 14 (3), pp. 432-449. ISSN 1474-7731.
Wilson, Kalpana (2017) Re-centring ‘race’ in development: population policies and global capital accumulation in the era of the SDGs. Globalizations 14 (3), pp. 432-449. ISSN 1474-7731.
Wilson, Kalpana (2017) Worlds beyond the political? Post-development approaches in practices of transnational solidarity activism. Third World Quarterly 38 (12), pp. 2684-2702. ISSN 0143-6597.
Wilson, Kalpana (2015) Towards a radical re-appropriation: gender, development and Neoliberal Feminism. Development and Change 46 (4), pp. 803-832. ISSN 0012-155X.

Book

Madhok, S. and Phillips, A. and Wilson, Kalpana and Hemmings, C., eds. (2013) Gender, agency and coercion. Thinking Gender in Transnational Times. New York, U.S. and London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137295613.
Wilson, Kalpana (2012) Race, racism and development: interrogating history, discourse and practice. London, UK: Zed Books. ISBN 9781848135116.

Book Section

Wilson, Kalpana (2021) Racism, imperialism and international development. In: Farris, S. and Skeggs, B. and Toscano, A. and Bromberg, S. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Marxism. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781473974234. (In Press)
Ramamurthy, Anandi and Wilson, Kalpana (2018) 'An act of struggle in the present': History, education and political campaigning by South Asian anti-imperialist activists in Britain. In: Choudry, Aziz and Vally, Salim (eds.) Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements: History's Schools. Routledge Advances in Sociology. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138059108.
Wilson, Kalpana (2018) Development. In: Bleiker, R. (ed.) Visual Global Politics. Interventions. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780415726078.

Editorial

Wilson, Kalpana and Ung Loh, J. and Purewal, N. (2018) Introduction to Special Issue of Feminist Review, ‘Gender, Violence and the Neoliberal State in India'. Feminist Review 119 (1), pp. 1-4. Springer. ISSN 0141-7789.

External Repositories

LSE Research Online