Catherine Comyn
PhD candidate in International Political Economy
Contact details
Biography
Catherine is a PhD candidate in International Political Economy at King's College London. Grounded in historical materialism, her work is centrally interested in intersections of finance and colonisation, and possibilities for their overcoming. She is the author of The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa (ESRA, 2023).
Research interests
Finance, financialisation, colonialism, value theory, cryptocurrency, socialism, socialisation
PhD research
My PhD research critically engages with the development of "financial democratisation" as an academic concept and political practice in the post-2008 context. I analyse financial democratisation as a project structured by a particular framing of the relation between finance and the social and I query the positioning of production and subjectivity within this. In order to concretise financial democratisation and its implications, I supplement theoretical analysis with empirical research of groups who are 'democratising finance' in the practical sites of political campaigning and fintech. This thesis employs a Marxist critique of money and finance to examine how various projects of financial democratisation and their positioning of the relation between finance and the social are shaped by financialisation as a mode of existence of capital accumulation. This enables the variegated political expressions of financial democratisation - which range from socialist to libertarian - to be mutually situated within the economic development of capitalism. Finally, this thesis seeks to further progressive social sciences approaches to finance by employing recent developments in value theory to conceptualise the relationships between finance, the social, and revolutionary subjectivity in contemporary capitalism.
PhD supervisor
Latest publications
Comyn, C. (2023). The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa. Auckland: Economic and Social Research Aotearoa.
Comyn, C. (2022). ‘Te Peeke o Aotearoa: Colonial and Decolonial Finance in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1860s–1890s’. In C. Bourne, P. Gilbert, M. Haiven, J. Montgomerie (eds.) The Entangled Legacies of Empire. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
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.
News
Researcher's new book nominated for literary award
A PhD researcher has seen her new book put forward for a prestigious literary prize.
New book examines the role of finance behind colonial expansion
A new book authored by a PhD candidate at King’s examines the role of finance at the heart of the British colonial project in the 19th century.
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.
News
Researcher's new book nominated for literary award
A PhD researcher has seen her new book put forward for a prestigious literary prize.
New book examines the role of finance behind colonial expansion
A new book authored by a PhD candidate at King’s examines the role of finance at the heart of the British colonial project in the 19th century.