Lekh Nath Paudel

Dr. Lekh Nath Paudel is an (international) political economist specializing in transdisciplinary research on financialization of migration, remittances and transnational families. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher on the SFB 1604  B3 Project "The Production of Gender Differentiating Migration Policies" at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS). He holds a PhD from the University of Lausanne: “Debt-reign in Nepal: financialization of remittances, emotional regimes, and rural finance” (2022). Dr. Paudel’s PhD research investigates how transnational families and remittances have become linked to the global financialization agenda – ‘financialization of remittances’ – and the ways in which they have contributed to shaping forms of governing and social (gender, class/caste) hierarchies associated with finance in rural areas. He demonstrates competence in transdisciplinary research, drawing on feminist, postcolonial, Marxian and poststructuralist debates across disciplinary boundaries. Dr. Paudel has published in reputed journals such as Review of International Political Economy, Finance & Society, Environment and Planning A, and Strategic Analysis, and he regularly contributes columns to various national dailies and magazines in Nepal, specifically on regional politics (South Asia). Dr. Paudel is a member of an initiative to establish Graduate School of Public Policy under the University of Nepal Development Board. He is also involved in teaching as Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Masters in International Cooperation and Development at Midwestern University and the Nepal Armed Forces Commandants Staff College.

Research Expertise and Interests:

• Migration, remittances and development
• Gender, class/caste relations and emotional regimes
• Debt-reigns, rural finance and financialization of everyday lives
• Competence in transdisciplinary research

Geographic Focus/ Fieldwork Experience:

• South Asia (Nepal, India, South Asian Regional Networks)
• Nepali Diaspora in Europe (Barcelona, Brussels, Leuven, Lisbon, London, Reading etc.)

Approaches:

• Everyday International Political Economy
• Feminist, post/decolonial and poststructuralist debates
• Governmentality, subjectivities and Marxian/Gramscian debates
• Decolonizing epistemologies and knowledge production