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Lekh Nath Paudel

International Political Economy
Transdisciplinary research on migration, remittances, financialization studies; regional focus: South Asia and Diaspora

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. Poudel’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

Approaches

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

Geographic Focus/ Fieldwork Experience:

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

Journal Publications

Paudel LN. and Kunz, R. (2022). The Financialization of remittances in Nepal: governing through pedagogy of fear and hope, Finance and Society 8(2): 169-88, https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.7766
Paudel, LN. (2022) Remittances and reconfiguration of rural finance in Nepal (1900-1960), in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 54(4): 822-838, https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221092777
Paudel, LN. with Kunz, R. and Maisenbacher, J. (2022) Remittances Development and Financialisation beyond the Global North, in EPA: Economy and Society 54(4) 693–701, https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221088867
Paudel, LN. (2021) with Kunz, R. and Maisenbacher, J. ‘The Financialisation of Remittances: Governing through Emotions’, in Review of International Political Economy, 28(6):1607-1631, https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1785923
Paudel LN. with Karki, R. (June 2015) ‘Challenges to the Revision of the Nepal-India Peace and Friendship Treaty-1950’, Strategic Analysis 39(4):402-416, https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2015.1047220
Paudel, LN. (November 2014) The Highway Routes: Small Arms Smuggling in Eastern Nepal, Issue Brief, Small Arms Survey, Geneva http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/G-Issue-briefs/NAVA-IB4-Highway-Routes.pdf

Research Projects

Metamorphosis of financial subjectivities: the financialization of remittances and creation of the ambiguous and contingent financial subjects (own)
Co-applicant, Cultural Political Economy of Remittances in Nepal and Beyond, SERI Seed Funding Grant (2016)