RAJESH VENUGOPAL

I am Associate Professor at the London School of Economics (LSE)'s Department of International Development. I previously studied, worked and taught at the Universities of Oxford and York. For more details, including contact info, please see my departmental web page. I research and write at the intersection of critical development studies and the sociology of knowledge. I have also written on ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, natural disasters, and contested political order.

NEW MONOGRAPH UNDER CONSTRUCTION (due 2026)

I am writing a new monograph on critical knowledge in development studies. The following two chapters are available as drafts to download:

Chapter 6: What’s Critical About Critical Development Studies?

In this chapter, I ask what is critical about critical development studies? How does critical thinking relate to knowledge about development? I answer these questions by subjecting critical scholarship to its own repertoires of analytical scrutiny and by turning the lens of investigation onto critique itself. I argue that critique is not, as it sees itself, a marginal, dissident tradition opposed to a value-free mainstream, but is ubiquitous, constitutive, and productive of the mainstream of development knowledge. Drawing on a genealogical approach, I identify three foundational ‘ur-critiques’ that structure development thought: a Northern critique grounded in universalist paternalism, a Southern critique rooted in historical injustice and national autonomy, and an Egalitarian critique that problematises development as hierarchical, exploitative, and ecologically harmful. I show how these ethical orientations generate distinct families of theories, policies, and practices, and argue that mapping development knowledge through critique reveals its moral foundations, internal contradictions, and evolving fault lines.

Chapter 7: How do Critical Theories differ from Conspiracy Theories?

What explains the similarities and ambiguity between critical theories and conspiracy theories? How can they be distinguished? How are they connected? In this chapter, I argue that the difference between critical and conspiracy theories is not ontological, but sociological. Drawing on a diverse range of literatures, and a case study of Giorgio Agamben’s writings in the Covid-19 pandemic, the chapter seeks out the formal and informal criteria to demarcate them. It presents a framework to understand the shared origins of critical and conspiracy theories in the sceptical reasoning of uncertainty. The answer is thus that there are no hard boundaries to demarcate critical knowledge from conspiracy theories, but that this occurs in practice through the socially constructed boundaries by which reason itself is regulated.

MY EARLIER BOOK

My 2018 book, Nationalism, Development and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (CUP) asks why Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict has been so protracted, and so resistant to solution? What explains the enduring political significance of Sinhala nationalism? What is the relationship between market reform and conflict? Why did the Norwegian-sponsored peace process collapse? How is the Rajapaksa phenomenon to be understood?