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Dr Ashok Kumar

Positions held:
  • Reader / Associate Professor of Political Economy, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Business School
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Ashok Kumar is a Reader (Associate Professor) of Political Economy whose work examines capitalist crises, disruption, and the dynamics of global supply chains.

    He is the author of Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age (Cambridge University Press), which showed that global production is organised through a universal structural logic that shapes workers’ bargaining power. The book received the 2021 Paul Sweezy Outstanding Book Prize from the American Sociological Association and the 2022 Immanuel Wallerstein Memorial Book Award.

    Ashok’s research has appeared in leading journals including Antipode, Environment and Planning A, Competition and Change, and Global Networks. He has served on the editorial boards of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and City, and currently sits on the editorial boards of Historical Materialism and the American Association of Geographers Review of Books.

    Beyond academia, Ashok writes regularly for public outlets such as The Guardian and The Independent, and frequently provides expert commentary on the BBC, Sky News, and Al Jazeera.

    His work has been supported by major funding bodies, including a Fulbright Scholarship and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship.

    Highlights

    • Publications (more on Publications page):

      , Cambridge University Press, 2020.

    • Public Engagement (see more on Business and Community page)

      BBC:

    Web profiles

  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions within ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú:
    1

    Areas of Research Supervision


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

    If you're interested in pursuing a PhD please first send Ashok 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:


    Guinevere L. Nell, 1st Supervisor (with Adam Gearey, Law School): Cooperatives and the Profit-Seeking Economy: How Britain Can Become a More Cooperative Economy

    Darius Khalid, 2nd Supervisor (with Kalpana Wilson, Geography at ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú): Towards a Materialist Analysis of Identity and Neoliberalism under Settler Colonialism

    Elham Rababa, 2nd Supervisor (with Abdulrahman Al-Surmi, School of Business and Law at ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú): Leveraging Business Intelligence to Reduce Food Waste in the Retail Stage of the Food Supply Chain

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • PANAGIOTIS ILIOPOULOS
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Essays on the Network Structure of Global Value Chains and Global Production Networks
      Awarded:
      2022

    Teaching

    Teaching

    Convener and Lecturer

    • Globalization: Forces, Players and Management (postgraduate)
    • Development Policy (postgraduate)                                             
    • Dynamics of Global Capitalism:Theory and Practice (postgraduate)
    • International Human Resources Management (postgraduate)
    • Principles of Organizational Management (postgraduate)
    • Managing Change (undergraduate)
    • Organizational Change (undergraduate)                           

    Teaching modules

    • Globalisation: forces, players and management
    • Principles of Organization and Management
    • PG Dissertation Preparation
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Kumar, Ashok (2026) . Antipode 58 (1), ISSN 0066-4812.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2024) . Historical Materialism pp. 1-42. ISSN 1465-4466.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2024) . Historical Materialism pp. 1-31. ISSN 1465-4466.
    • Knox, R. and Kumar, Ashok (2023) . Historical Materialism 31 (2), pp. 25-48. ISSN 1465-4466.
    • Iliopoulos, P.T. and Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok and Popoyan, L. (2022) . Advances in Complex Systems 25 (02n03), ISSN 0219-5259.
    • Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok (2021) . Environment and Planning A 53 (1), pp. 53-72. ISSN 0308-518X.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2019) . Competition & Change 23 (4), pp. 346-377. ISSN 1024-5294.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2019) . Global Networks 19 (3), pp. 394-422. ISSN 1470-2266.
    • Kumar, Ashok and Gebrial, D. and Elliott-Cooper, A. and Iyer, S. (2018) . Historical Materialism 26 (2), pp. 3-20. ISSN 1465-4466.
    • Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (2017) . City 21 (3-4), pp. 420-427. ISSN 1360-4813.
    • Gebrial, D. and Kumar, Ashok (2016) . Economic and Political Weekly 51 (10), ISSN 0012-9976.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2015) . Historical Materialism 23 (3), pp. 215-227. ISSN 1465-4466.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2014) . City 18 (6), pp. 789-807. ISSN 1360-4813.
    • Kumar, Ashok and Mahoney, J. (2014) . Journal of Labor and Society 17 (2), pp. 187-210. ISSN 1089-7011.
    • Elliott-Cooper, A. and Murrey, A. and Kumar, Ashok and Younis, M. (2014) . City 18 (6), pp. 771-775. ISSN 1360-4813.

    Book

    • Kumar, Ashok (2020) . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108764810.
    • Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T., eds. (2018) . Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780815381754.

    Book review

    • Featherstone, D. and Kumar, Ashok and Zhang, A.Y. and Fu, W. and Fan Lim, K. (2021) .
    • Kumar, Ashok (2014) .

    Book section

    • Kumar, Ashok (2020) . In: Bradshaw, A. and Hietanen, J. (eds.) The Dictionary of Coronavirus Culture. London, UK: Repeater/Penguin Random House. ISBN 9781913462437.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2020) . In: Blakeley, G. (ed.) Futures of Socialism: The Pandemic and the Post-Corbyn Era. Verso. ISBN 9781839761331.
    • Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (2018) . In: Tilley, L. and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (eds.) Primitive Accumulation, Global Capitalism, and Resistance: Enclosures and Discontents. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780815381754.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2018) . In: Tripathi, V.K. (ed.) Advances in Urban Studies in India. R.K. Books. ISBN 9789382847922.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2017) . 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) . 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) . 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) . 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) . In: Bailey, M. and Freedman, D. (eds.) The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance. London, UK: Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745331928.
    • Kumar, Ashok (2011) . 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) . Historical Materialism 26 (2), pp. 3-20. Brill. ISSN 1569-206X.
    • Tilley, Lisa and Kumar, Ashok and Cowan, T. (2017) . 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) . Pisa, Italy: Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.
    • Iliopoulos, Panagiotis and Galanis, G. and Kumar, Ashok and Popoyan, L. (2020) . London, UK: ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, University of London.
    • Kumar, Ashok and Galanis, G. (2018) . Post-Keynesian Economics Society.
  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Outreach

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

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    BBC Newsnight: