Events

Labour Inequalities Bound In Histories Of The Colonial And Postcolonial: A Workshop On Impact And Knowledge Exchange

Hosted by International Inequalities Institute

Monday 20 May, and Tuesday 21 May 2024, 9.30am to 5.00 pm. In-person and online event. Marshall Building, Room 1.07.

This workshop aims to deepen theoretical knowledge of the impacts of colonialism by exploring marginalized and disadvantaged cohorts who remained invisible at the formal close of empire in South Asia (1947 onwards) and the aftermath. Categories who have gone unnoticed, unaccounted, and remained hidden or have escaped our attention. What was the relationship of these groups to the colonial state, economy, and civic society? How did they confront colonial practices? What kind of knowledge systems, skill sets, labour and world views were they able to offer that met with biases and omissions? Did they see the later as transformational? Did the postcolonial moment alter their circumstances by opening new economic pathways, identities, resistance, migration avenues, social mobility, and a diverse set of experiences? Or did the postcolonial moment deepen existing inequalities that remain bound up in colonial histories? Crucially, the workshop aims to explore approaches that prioritize decoloniality, coloniality and postcoloniality. We seek papers that can offer new insights to discuss and advance debates through fresh ideas, rigorous knowledge exchange, and impactful evidence. 

Please find the full-day agenda here.

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The Gini and the tonic: Understanding the dynamics of inequality measurement

Part of the Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 21 May 2024, 12.30am to 1:30 pm. In-person event. Sir Arthur Lewis Buildling, Room LG.04 (SAL.LG.04)

Speaker: 
Professor Sanghamitra Bandopadhyay, Professor of Development Economics and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Globalisation Research, Queen Mary University of London and Visiting Professor, LSE III

Understanding how to accurately measure the dynamics of inequality is of utmost importance to social scientists. In this paper, for the first time, I identify which inequality measures are best suited to capture the dynamics of inequality, especially for panel regression applications. To undertake this study, I generate a dataset of twelve inequality measure types for up to 100 years across 34 countries using annual data on mortality distributions. Upon modelling inequality as a fractionally integrated process I find that inequality measures that are independent of the mean have more stationary cases, a vital requirement for regressors in panel regression analysis. Mean-dependent measures like the Gini, however, are mostly non-stationary, making them wholly unsuitable for panel regressions. This result is confirmed by estimating the "inequality and growth" relationship, where only mean-independent measures generate a stable relationship. Using a VAR approach, impulse responses show that mean-dependent measures are more likely to carry the effect of a shock, making them less suitable for panel regression analyses. Tests of normality and volatility function as excellent "marker" tests whether a chosen inequality measure is suitable for dynamic contexts. The findings suggest that no inequality measure should be used for dynamic purposes without rigorously testing their suitability. 

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Visions of inequality: from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War

Hosted by International Inequalities Institute

Thursday 30 May 2024 at 6:30pm – 8:00pm. In-person event. Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building. 

Speaker: Professor Branko Milanovic, Research Professor at the Graduate Center at City University of New York (CUNY), Senior Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at CUNY, and Visiting Professor at the International Inequalities Institute at LSE

Chair: Professor Facundo Alvaredo, Co-Director of the World Inequality Database and the World Inequality Lab

Join us for this talk by Branko Milanovic about his new book, Visions of Inequality: from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War.

A history of how economists across two centuries have thought about inequality, told through portraits of six key figures. “How do you see income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to change?” That is the question Branko Milanovic imagines posing to six of history's most influential economists: François Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Vilfredo Pareto, and Simon Kuznets. Probing their works in the context of their lives, he charts the evolution of thinking about inequality, showing just how much views have varied among ages and societies. Indeed, Milanovic argues, we cannot speak of “inequality” as a general concept: any analysis of it is inextricably linked to a particular time and place. Meticulously extracting each author’s view of income distribution from their writings, Milanovic offers an genealogy of the discourse surrounding inequality. These intellectual portraits are infused not only with a deep understanding of economic theory but also with psychological nuance, reconstructing each thinker’s outlook given what was knowable to them within their historical contexts and methodologies.

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Cart before the Horse? Unpacking the Pathways between Social Norms, Opportunities and Women's Work

Seminar hosted by the International Inequalities Institute 

Wednesday 5 June 2024 at 2.00pm - 3:30pm. In-person event. Marshall Building, Room 2.06 (MAR.2.06).

Speaker: Ashwini Deshpande, Visiting Fellow, III (joint with Anisha Sharma, Ashoka University)

Chair: Naila Kabeer, Faculty Associate, III; Professor of Gender and Development, Department of International Development

Mainstream analyses of low and declining labour force participation of women in India focus on the constraints imposed by conservative social norms that prevent women from accessing paid work opportunities. Accordingly, most interventions and policy suggestions focus on changing norms through individual behavioural changes. How valid is this understanding? Historically, have gendered norms related to women's employment changed in response to material conditions, or is a prior change in norms a precondition for increasing participation of women in paid work? The talk draws upon examples from international historical experience, and analyses Indian national level data over the last three decades to document which social norms have been changing and to what extent. I present evidence on the specific constraints on women's participation in paid work, arising from low demand for female labour,  which needs to be understood within the wider context of insufficient productive employment opportunities. The evidence will highlight the importance of intersectionality in the analysis of the interplay between norms and opportunities. 

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Fathers in a Motherland: Imagining Fatherhood in Colonial India

Hosted by the Ayahs and Amahs Research Network

Friday 14 June 2024 at 9:00pm. Online event.

Speaker: Professor Swapna M. Banerjee, Professor of South Asian History, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Swapna Banerjee recently published her monograph Fathers in a Motherland: Imagining Fatherhood in Colonial India (Oxford University Press, 2022). This book breaks new ground by weaving stories of fathers and children into the history of gender, family, and nation in colonial India. Focusing on the reformist Bengali Hindu and Brahmo communities, the author contends that fatherhood assumed new meaning and significance in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century India. During this time of social and political change, fathers extended their roles beyond breadwinning to take an active part in rearing their children. Utilizing pedagogic literature, scientific journals, autobiographies, correspondences, and published essays, Fathers in a Motherland documents the different ways the authority and power of the father was invoked and constituted both metaphorically and in everyday experiences.

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Power, politics, and belonging: the lasting impacts of colonialism 

Hosted by LSE Festival: Power and Politics

Saturday 15 June 2024 at 12:00pm – 1:00pm. In-person and online event. Marshall Building. 

Speakers: Professor Neil Cummins, Professor of Economic History in the Department of Economic History at LSE; Leah Eryenyu, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity; Dr Maël Lavenaire, Research Fellow in Racial Inequality in the International Inequalities Institute at LSE

Chair: Dr Sara Camacho-Felix, Assistant Professor (Education) in the International Inequalities Institute at LSE

Politics of power and wealth have had a huge impact on the structuring of inequalities across the globe. As the racial and ethnic inequalities that we see today stem from centuries of discrimination and marginalisation, in order to tackle them, we will need to understand how they have been embedded in the very structures of our societies. 

We discuss examples of racial and ethnic inequalities from the 19th century to the present day in an attempt to unravel the legacy of past injustices and investigate the link between power, politics, and belonging. 

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Defending democracy: building solidarity with persecuted writers, journalists, and artists

Hosted by LSE Festival: Power and Politics

Saturday 15 June 2024 at 2:00pm – 3:00pm. In-person and online event. Marshall Building. 

Speakers: Ross Holder, Head of the Asia/ Pacific Region at PEN International; Professor Alpa Shah, Professor of Anthropology at LSE; Salman Usmani, writer, editor, and digital communications specialist

Chair: Dr Ayca Cubucku, Associate Professor in Human Rights and Co-Director of LSE Human Rights at LSE

Amidst the surge of global authoritarianism, how do we protect the freedom of speech and the freedom of dissent that is crucial for democracy? What is the role of global financial institutions and regimes in the crackdown on dissent in faraway places? What role do international human rights organisations, cultural spaces and educational institutions have in protecting the spaces of democracy globally? 

In this event, we examine the persecution of writers, academics, journalists and artists across the globe, and question the unwitting role of international financial regimes and reflect on how we might cultivate international solidarity and carve out vital spaces of hope in these globally challenging times. 

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