Dr Ashok Kumar — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

Ashok Kumar is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) of Political Economy.

He has published widely on a number of issues including urban theory, development, capitalist crisis, workers’ movements, global supply chains and identity.

His most recent book Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age (Cambridge University Press) was the winner of the American Sociological Association's 2021 Paul Sweezy Outstanding Book Prize and the 2022 Immanuel Wallerstein Memorial Book Award.

The book demonstrates that the production process under global capitalism is governed by a universal logic that shapes the structural bargaining power of workers.

Alongside his research and teaching, he has sat on the editorial boards of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and the urban geography journal City. He's currently a member of the editorial collective of the journal Historical Materialism.

His research has been funded through generous grants from a number of bodies including as a Fulbright Scholar and the Leverhulme Early Career Fellow.

Highlights

Recent Publications:
Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of Sweatshop Age, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
"A Dynamic Model of Global Value Network Governance" Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 2021. (with Giorgos Galanis)
Recent Public Engagement
TalkRadio: Should Tony Blair Return to Politics?
Russia Today: Monopoly Capitalism to Monopsony Capitalism: is there any hope for workers?
BBC: U.S. pulls out and imminent attack by Turkey on the Kurds
Sky News: India's Annexation of Kashmir
Sky News: Tony Blair is a ghoulish war criminal

Qualifications

PhD, Oxford University, 2015
MSc, London School of Economics, 2011
BA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008

Web profiles

Research

Research interests

globalization
theories of capitalism
urban theory
race and racism
global supply chains
development
social movements
workers' bargaining power

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:: 1

Areas of Research Supervision

Ashok has a wide breadth of heterodox research interests including (but certainly not limited to): race and class, capital and empire, urban theory and land economy, industrial relations and labour movements, global value chains and development, and economic geography and political economy.

If you're interested in pursuing a PhD please first send him a proposal that is succinct (two-sides of an A4 maximum), engages with theory, is empirically rigorous, and advances a causal - rather than exploratory - argument.

Current PhD Students

Panagiotis Iliopoulos (with Giorgos Galanis, Goldsmiths University): How Competition Affects the Capital-Labour Relations in Globalised Capital

Darius Khalid (with Kalpana Wilson, Geography at Birkbeck): Towards a Materialist Analysis of Identity and Neoliberalism under Settler Colonialism

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

PANAGIOTIS ILIOPOULOS

Nature of supervision:
Principal Supervisor, Oct 2018

Title of thesis:
Essays on the Network Structure of Global Production

Awarded:
2022

Teaching

Teaching

Convenor and Lecturer

The Dynamics of Global Capitalism: Theory and Practice (postgraduate)
Personal and Academic Skills (undergraduate)

Contributing Lecturer
Globalization: Forces, Players and Management (postgraduate)
Principles of Organizational Management (postgraduate)
International Human Resources Management (postgraduate)

The main postgraduate module I convene is The Dynamics of Global Capitalism: Theory and Practice in the summer term. The aim is to leave students with a deeper theoretical, practical and critical analysis of global capitalism. Capitalism, or the capitalist mode of production, is characterized by private ownership, wage-based labour, and the extraction of surplus value to accumulate profits.

This module focuses on debates on the global dimensions of this current mode of production Our analysis of capital includes, but is not limited to, the firm, the network, the value chain, the state, and at the level of a logic. We will cover quite a bit of terrain from analyzing competition to theories of crisis, automation, labour, inequality, and cities.

The course draws on research in the disciplines of business, political economy, economic geography, political science, sociology, and economics. Where appropriate, it introduces and employs (in a non-technical way) theoretical tools from these disciplines. My hope is that students leave the module with more than just a technical understanding of the economic world – one that does not seek to simply optimize the environment for businesses (i.e. the accumulation of capital) but rather demystifies the market to understand the ways capitalism is shaped by both the proprietors of capital and those organising against it.

Teaching modules

Managing Change (BUMN169H3)
Globalisation: forces, players and management (MOMN074H7)

Publications

Article

Kumar, Ashok (2024) When monopsony power wanes - part two: subjective agency. Historical Materialism pp. 1-31. ISSN 1465-4466.
Kumar, Ashok (2024) When monopsony power wanes - part one: material conditions. Historical Materialism pp. 1-42. ISSN 1465-4466.
Knox, R. and Kumar, Ashok (2023) Reexamining race and Capitalism in the Marxist tradition – editorial introduction. Historical Materialism 31 (2), pp. 25-48. ISSN 1465-4466.
Iliopoulos, P.T. and Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok and Popoyan, L. (2022) Sectoral market power in global production: a theoretical and observational study. Advances in Complex Systems 25 (02n03), ISSN 0219-5259.
Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok (2021) A dynamic model of global value network governance. Environment and Planning A 53 (1), pp. 53-72. ISSN 0308-518X.
Kumar, Ashok (2019) A race from the bottom? Lessons from a workers' struggle at a Bangalore warehouse. Competition & Change 23 (4), pp. 346-377. ISSN 1024-5294.
Kumar, Ashok (2019) Oligopolistic suppliers, symbiotic value chains and workers’ bargaining power: labor contestation in South China at an ascendant global footwear firm. Global Networks 19 (3), pp. 394-422. ISSN 1470-2266.
Kumar, Ashok and Gebrial, D. and Elliott-Cooper, A. and Iyer, S. (2018) Marxist interventions into contemporary debates. Historical Materialism 26 (2), pp. 3-20. ISSN 1465-4466.
Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (2017) Introduction - Enclosures and discontents: Primitive accumulation and resistance under globalised capital. City 21 (3-4), pp. 420-427. ISSN 1360-4813.
Gebrial, D. and Kumar, Ashok (2016) Atoning for the past. Economic and Political Weekly 51 (10), ISSN 0012-9976.
Kumar, Ashok (2015) Global workers’ rights through Capitalist institutions?. Historical Materialism 23 (3), pp. 215-227. ISSN 1465-4466.
Kumar, Ashok and Mahoney, J. (2014) Stitching together: how workers are hemming down transnational capital in the hyper-global apparel industry. WorkingUSA 17 (2), pp. 187-210. ISSN 1089-7011.
Elliott-Cooper, A. and Murrey, A. and Kumar, Ashok and Younis, M. (2014) Labour and resistance across global spaces: introduction. City 18 (6), pp. 771-775. ISSN 1360-4813.
Kumar, Ashok (2014) Interwoven threads: building a labour countermovement in Bangalore's export-oriented garment industry. City 18 (6), pp. 789-807. ISSN 1360-4813.

Book

Kumar, Ashok (2019) Monopsony Capitalism: power and production in the twilight of the sweatshop age. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108764810. (In Press)
Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T., eds. (2018) Primitive accumulation, global capitalism, and resistance: enclosures and discontents. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780815381754. (In Press)

Book Review

Featherstone, D. and Kumar, Ashok and Zhang, A.Y. and Fu, W. and Fan Lim, K. (2021) Book review symposium: On Shifting Foundations. (In Press)
Kumar, Ashok (2014) Review: Securing the security.

Book Section

Kumar, Ashok (2020) Essential workers. In: Bradshaw, A. and Hietanen, J. (eds.) The Dictionary of Coronavirus Culture. London, UK: Repeater/Penguin Random House. ISBN 9781913462437. (In Press)
Kumar, Ashok (2020) Global Capitalism requires a global Socialist strategy. In: Blakeley, G. (ed.) Futures of Socialism: The Pandemic and the Post-Corbyn Era. Verso. ISBN 9781839761331. (In Press)
Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (2018) Introduction - Enclosures and discontents: primitive accumulation and resistance under globalised capital. In: Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (eds.) Primitive Accumulation, Global Capitalism, and Resistance: Enclosures and Discontents. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780815381754. (In Press)
Kumar, Ashok (2018) Maggots in the rotting apple: on the Neohausmanisation of Bangalore. In: Tripathi, V.K. (ed.) Advances in Urban Studies in India. R.K. Books. ISBN 9789382847922.
Kumar, Ashok (2017) Urbanization. In: Turner, B.S. and Kyung-Sup, C. and Epstein, C.F. and Kivisto, P. and Outhwaite, W. and Ryan, J.M. (eds.) The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Wiley. ISBN 9781118430873.
Kumar, Ashok (2015) Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance. In: Lee, J.H.X. (ed.) Chinese Americans: A History & Culture of a People. Santa Barbara, U.S.: ABC-Clio. pp. 176-177. ISBN 9781610695497.
Kumar, Ashok (2015) International Ladies' Garments Workers’ Union. In: Lee, J.H.X. (ed.) Chinese Americans: A History & Culture of a People. Santa Barbara, U.S.: ABC-Clio. pp. 206-206. ISBN 9781610695497.
Kumar, Ashok (2012) Wisconsin is global: the shape of things to come. In: Buhle, M.J. and Buhle, P. (eds.) It Started in Wisconsin: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest. New York, U.S.: Verso Books. pp. 161-172. ISBN 9781844678881.
Kumar, Ashok (2011) Achievements and limitations of the UK student movement. In: Bailey, M. and Freedman, D. (eds.) The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance. London, UK: Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745331928.
Kumar, Ashok (2011) Past and present. In: Palmieri, T. and Solomon, C. (eds.) Springtime: The New Student Rebellions. Verso Books. pp. 27-28. ISBN 9781844677405.

Editorial

Kumar, Ashok and Elliott-Cooper, A. and Iyer, S. and Gebrial, D. (2018) An Introduction to the Special Issue on Identity Politics. Historical Materialism 26 (2), pp. 3-20. Brill. ISSN 1569-206X.
Tilley, Lisa and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (2017) Enclosures and discontents: primitive accumulation and resistance under global capital. City 21 (3-4), pp. 420-427. Taylor & Francis. ISSN 1360-4813.

Monograph

Iliopoulos, P. and Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok and Popoyan, L. (2021) The power of sectoral geographical centrality in global production. Pisa, Italy: Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.
Iliopoulos, Panagiotis and Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok and Popoyan, L. (2020) Network configuration as a measure of power in global production networks. London, UK: Birkbeck, University of London.
Kumar, Ashok and Galanis, G. (2018) A dynamic spatial model of global governance structures. Post-Keynesian Economics Society.

Business and community

Outreach

Public Engagement:

BBC: UK Strikes and Inflation

BBC: G20 Summit in India

BBC: The U.S pulls out and Turkey's imminent attack on the Kurds

Sky: New EV Battery Factory

Sky: Transport Strikes

BBC: Winter of Discontent

Sky: Winter Strikes

Sky: India's Annexation of Kashmir

Sky: Debating the US-Britain "Special Relationship"

BBC Radio: Strikes and Inflation Explained

LBC: Rail and Junior Doctors Strike

Sky: Brexit second referendum?

Sky: UK Unemployment

Sky: RMT Announces New Wave of Strikes

Sky: Blair is a ghoulish war criminal

Sky: Wave of Strikes and Nationalisation

Sky: Rail Ticket Closures

Sky: Labour antisemitism controversy

Sky: Is the far right on the rise? debate

Sky: Nationalising Banks and Abolishing NATO

Sky: UK arming Israel and the need for BDS

Sky: Russia Hysteria and Gazans Killed

Sky: Young Labour and UCU strikes

BBC: Agricultural Reforms and Farmers Protest in India

Sky: UCU Lecturer's Strike Discussion

TalkRadio: Debate 'should Tony Blair return to politics?'

Sky: Renationalisation Debate with John McDonnell

Russia Today: Interview on Monopsony Capitalism book

Sky: How Democracy Works

TalkRadio: Uber to institute minimum wage, holiday pay & pension

A World without Borders

BBC: French Strikes and Expropriation

BBC: French Strikes and Unemployment

BBC: Business Paper Review

BBC Business: French Labour Law

BBC Newsnight: Gaddafi and the LSE