Dr Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven
Senior Lecturer in International Development
Research interests
- International development
- Economics
Biography
Ingrid joined the Department of International Development at King’s in September 2021. She obtained her PhD in Economics from The New School in 2018 and held a lectureship at the University of York prior to joining King's.
Her work goes beyond disciplinary boundaries, drawing on development economics, international political economy, economic history and development studies. Her research is broadly centered on questions of uneven development, international financial subordination, and decolonizing economics. Regionally, her focus has been on African political economy.
Ingrid is also the founder and editor of the blog Developing Economics, co-founder and Steering Group Member of Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ), on the management committee of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE), and on the advisory board of IDEAS Africa.
Research
- Development economics
- Critique of political economy
- Uneven development
- International financial subordination
- Heterodox economics
- Decolonizing economics
- Mining
Ingrid’s research spans three thematic areas: uneven development, international financial subordination, and critically scrutinising the Economics discipline itself. She has approached uneven development from both theoretical and empirical angles. For example, she has made the case for a redefinition of ‘dependency theory’ as a research program to offer guidance for a renewal of development economics/studies by bringing in broader structural questions of how inequality is produced and reproduced in the global economy.
Her work on finance and production in the global South takes as a starting point the polarizing tendencies of capitalism and aims to theorize existing structures from the vantage point of the global South. Second, she has put forward a research agenda on international financial subordination with an interdisciplinary group of co-authors, which has become a reference point for scholars working on development finance from a critical perspective. This agenda is about unearthing why the structural power of finance takes a particularly violent form of expression in the global South.
Ingrid's empirical work has specifically focused on how finance in African economies is shaped by uneven structures of the global financial system. Finally, her research on critically scrutinising the Economics field itself ranges from exploring the Eurocentrism of the discipline, the impact of the use of GDP as the main measure of growth, and critically evaluating the use of randomised control trials (RCTs) in Economics.
Ingrid is the co-author of the book "Decolonising Economics - An Introduction" (2025). Underlying these interrelated strands is Ingrid's strong interest in exposing and countering Eurocentric views of economic processes and opening up space for theorisation from the South.
Teaching
Undergraduate
- 6YYD0034 Decolonising Economics
Undergraduate/Postgraduate
- 6YYD0014/7YYD0023 Multinational Enterprises, Global Value Chains, and Local Development
PhD supervision
Ingrid welcomes applications for PhD topics related to any of her research interests.
Further details
Research
Contemporary Marxism Research Group
The Contemporary Marxism Research Group use the varieties of Marxist theory to analyse the contemporary world, with special reference to political economy and to political and social movements.
The International Political Economy Research Group
International Political Economy research group focuses on the examination of contemporary socioeconomic and political dynamics of crisis and limitations of European and global order.
London Political Economy Network
The London Political Economy Network aims to foster cross-university exchange and networking between London-based political economy research centres
Global Capitalism, Power & Uneven Development research group
We study the many ways in which the world-system unevenly constrains and drives development everywhere, with its persistent structural hierarchies, dependencies, contradictions, and unequal power relations between classes, ethnicities, genders, races, and states.
Climate, Environment, and Uneven Development research group
This group focuses on the critical study of the processes that drive and link social and ecological change in the contemporary world, with special attention to the climate crisis and its multiple social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions.
Events
A collaborative discussion about Global Capitalism research at KCL
A platform for academics to explore setting up a multi-disciplinary, trans-departmental Center for Global Capitalism at King's.
Please note: this event has passed.
Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the making of the modern world
Join us for the launch of 'Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World' with author Howard W. French.
Please note: this event has passed.
COVID-19 through a critical agrarian studies lens
Professor Haroon Akram-Lodhi discusses his new co-edited book Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies, and points to lessons from critical agrarian studies for...
Please note: this event has passed.
Research
Contemporary Marxism Research Group
The Contemporary Marxism Research Group use the varieties of Marxist theory to analyse the contemporary world, with special reference to political economy and to political and social movements.
The International Political Economy Research Group
International Political Economy research group focuses on the examination of contemporary socioeconomic and political dynamics of crisis and limitations of European and global order.
London Political Economy Network
The London Political Economy Network aims to foster cross-university exchange and networking between London-based political economy research centres
Global Capitalism, Power & Uneven Development research group
We study the many ways in which the world-system unevenly constrains and drives development everywhere, with its persistent structural hierarchies, dependencies, contradictions, and unequal power relations between classes, ethnicities, genders, races, and states.
Climate, Environment, and Uneven Development research group
This group focuses on the critical study of the processes that drive and link social and ecological change in the contemporary world, with special attention to the climate crisis and its multiple social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions.
Events
A collaborative discussion about Global Capitalism research at KCL
A platform for academics to explore setting up a multi-disciplinary, trans-departmental Center for Global Capitalism at King's.
Please note: this event has passed.
Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the making of the modern world
Join us for the launch of 'Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World' with author Howard W. French.
Please note: this event has passed.
COVID-19 through a critical agrarian studies lens
Professor Haroon Akram-Lodhi discusses his new co-edited book Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies, and points to lessons from critical agrarian studies for...
Please note: this event has passed.