We are pleased to host the 24th session of our Political Economy Teach-In Series, “The Internalisation of Austerity: Market Power & Economic Sovereignty”, on the 18th of June at 2pm UTC with Dr. Bhumika Muchhala.
Dr. Bhumika Muchhala has 20 years of experience in global justice advocacy and analysis, leading changemaking across multiple scales from intergovernmental negotiations at the UN to social movements. She is a senior advisor at the Third World Network and Adjunct Lecturer in global political economy and governance at The New School. Her transdisciplinary research and scholarship includes international and feminist political economy, political ecology, and critical theories from the global South, such as dependency, colonialism, postcolonialism and decoloniality.
This session will look at how today’s international financial architecture reproduces power imbalances rooted in colonial and imperial history. We’ll examine how austerity is internalised through fiscal rules and ideas of macroprudential or sound finance, as well as the significant role of Credit Rating Agencies and the International Monetary Fund surveillance function. Employing dependency and decolonial theories, this talk explores how the current era of financial market rule normalises and embeds compliance to an austerity bias through both policy and knowledge channels, which ultimately poses a critical challenge to the social contract, economic sovereignty, and developmental states across the South.
Reading List
Explore below a curated selection of resources authored by Global South feminists. For a more comprehensive collection on this and other feminist topics, visit the South Feminist Knowledge Hub.
We welcome your contributions! If you know of other resources that should be included in this reading list, please submit them via this form or email us at knowledgehub@southfeministfutures.org.
English
Austerity and Financialisation
Author: Corina Enrique Rodriguez
Blog post analysis about how Public policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis and prospects for economic recovery reveal new challenges for a transformative feminist agenda: the restoration of the austerity paradigm; the increasing role of private corporations in social provisioning (including vaccine access); the marketisation and financialisation of social policies. All these factors exacerbate gender and socio-economic inequalities.
Author: Dr. Bhumika Muchhala
The fiscal consolidation framework underpinning economic policy across much of the world has led to the erosion of critical public services and social infrastructure. These cutbacks have disproportionately affected women, who face diminished access to essential services. This paper puts forward a set of strategies spanning policy and practice – from progressive taxation to social movement building – aimed at advancing gender-equitable fiscal justice.
A Feminist Political Economy Lens Towards Equity and Justice in the Global South
Author: Dr. Bhumika Muchhala
In this insightful collection of papers and articles, scholar-activist Bhumika Muchhala examines how financial subordination generates conditions of gendered austerity through channels such as social reproduction and unpaid care work, reduced access to quality public services, and regressive taxation.
Teach-in-17 – “International Financial Institutions: Who holds the purse?”
Author: Mayada Hassanain
Mayada Hassanain is an economist with a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Khartoum and a postgraduate degree in Development Economics from SOAS University of London. Her research interests focus on social reproduction, the intersections of macro and social policy, and the political economy of Sudan. She is committed to advancing feminist perspectives in economic discourse and has published work in Feminist Africa. Previously a researcher with the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ), she is currently the senior program officer with the International Development Economics Association as part of the feminist economics team.
Author: Dr. Bhumika Muchhala
This chapter explores the current political economy of unequal financial and economic relations between the core, or the North, constituting many former colonial metropoles, and the periphery, or Global South, and former colonies. This is attempted through a dynamic and dialectical weaving of two disciplinary approaches, that of the colonial production of knowledge within decolonial theory with the dependency theory framework that articulates financial dependency and disciplinary mechanisms systemically embedded into the global financial-economic architecture.
French
IFIs and Social Protection: Gender Equality in Limbo
Author: Farah Al Shami
By promoting austerity, shrinking fiscal spaces, imposing the “cascade approach”, and shaping development paradigms, IFIs undermine social protection and exacerbate gender inequalities.
System Change for People and Planet: Decolonial Feminist Proposals on Climate, Debt and Care
Author: Sanam Amin
This feminist activist memoir by Sanam Amin calls for systemic change to combat the climate crisis by addressing its root causes: debt, militarism, and the undervaluation of care work. It advocates for debt cancellation in the Global South, demilitarization, investment in public care infrastructure, and community-led climate solutions. Grounded in decolonial and feminist analysis, it promotes a just transition that places people and the planet above profit.
Debt is a war against women’s autonomy
Authors: Verónica Gago, Luci Cavallero, Beatriz Ortiz Martínez
In an interview with Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero, the researchers argue that debt functions as a form of warfare against women’s autonomy. External debt crises push governments to cut public services, forcing women—especially mothers in vulnerable communities—to take on personal loans just to survive. This financial dependency locks them into abusive relationships and precarious work. Ultimately, debt isn’t just a fiscal issue—it’s a gendered instrument of control, compounding patriarchal and economic oppression by keeping women financially and socially constrained .
Feminist mobilisations against debt and austerity
Authors: Beatriz Ortiz Martínez, Anaïs Carton
Feminist movements—especially autonomous, Global South–led networks—have long linked debt and austerity to systemic oppression. They argue these financial tools disproportionately burden women by stripping public services, shifting care responsibilities onto them, and deepening precariousness. In response, grassroots feminist groups have mobilised through debt audits, collective sit-ins, media outreach, and international solidarity actions.
Portuguese
Authors: Janaína Lima Penalva da Silva, Francisco Mata Machado Tavares
Departing from a dialogue between critical tax theory and the new fiscal sociology, this article finds a peculiar kind of gender-based discrimination, which takes place in Brazilian tax legislation.
Imperialist war and feminist resistance in the Global South
Authors: The Tricontinental
Women creatively resist the impacts caused by unilateral coercive measures (UCMs), one of the forms of hybrid warfare used by hyper-imperialism, which reinforces patriarchy and other forms of social discrimination.
Women facing economic recession and austerity: an interpretation from feminist economics
Authors: Iriana Lima Cadó, Juliane da Costa Furnogo Adriano Machado
This article aims to take a look, from the perspective of feminist economics, at the trajectory of women in the labour market in the face of the economic recession (2014-2015) and subsequently in the face of the implementation of a set of austerity policies.
Spanish
Care: Between the feminist wave and austerity
Author: Juliana Martínez Franzoni
Reorganising care with equality requires two things: caring masculinities and adequate public services. Caring masculinities transform gender equality; adequate public services transform socioeconomic equality. It sounds easy, but it means transcending entrenched and deeply accepted inequalities throughout the region.
Authors: Silvia Federici, Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero
We must put an end to new forms of debt slavery. To the involuntary servitude imposed by financial capital. The obligation of debt, the mandate that leaves us with no choice but to go into debt in order to live, shows that debt functions as a productive tool. It puts us to work. It forces us to work harder. It leads us to sell our time and effort in advance. There is a history of movements against debt. There is a practical archive of non-payment that this book recounts.
Authors: Dr. Bhumika Muchhala and Maria Syed
The article contributes to the ongoing discourse on the implications of austerity and the urgent need for policies that support equitable growth in the global South.
Notes Towards a Feminist Tax Policy in Argentina
Author: María Julia Eliosoff Ferrero
This article seeks to generate a dialogue between the notions of tax and gender justice with the feminist movement, characterising some of the discussions on tax matters that currently exist in Argentina, seeking to account for their relevance for a feminist economic agenda. In particular, the following will be addressed: sovereign debt and austerity policies, the regressiveness of the tax system and evasion, avoidance in relation to capital flight.
Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy Initiative
Authors: Project Initiative for Human Rights Principles in Fiscal Policy
The Initiative seeks to develop and promote a compendium of principles and guidelines that summarise the human rights standards applicable to fiscal policy.
Arabic
IFIs and Social Protection: Gender Equality in Limbo
Author: Farah Al Shami
By promoting austerity, shrinking fiscal spaces, imposing the “cascade approach”, and shaping development paradigms, IFIs undermine social protection and exacerbate gender inequalities.
The repercussions of austerity policies on social protection programs for women
Author: May Saleh
Austerity measures, such as reducing aid, replacing universal social protection systems with social safety nets, reducing public spending, and increasing indirect taxes, exacerbate structural inequality and ultimately have disproportionate impacts on women. Therefore, it is crucial to establish or strengthen comprehensive social protection systems before phasing out aid.
Austerity policies and the exclusion of women from the labor market
Author: Sahar Meshmesh
Amid austerity policies and the increasing privatisation of essential services such as education and healthcare, low- and middle-income families are finding it difficult to access many of these services. As a result, the burden of living pressures has increasingly fallen on women, making it necessary for them to stay at home to care for the sick, the elderly, and children, due to the shrinking availability of affordable care options such as health centres, nursing homes, and daycare facilities.
Gender implications of austerity on girls’ education
Author: Sara al Bawari
In Lebanon, patriarchal norms and limited resources often lead families to prioritise boys’ education over girls’, especially without government support. This increases girls’ dropout rates, fueling gender-based violence and child marriage. Austerity in education could trigger another wave of teacher migration—mostly women—deepening job insecurity and harming the sector. Merging public schools to cut costs may also lead to higher dropout rates among girls, as some families reject co-educational settings due to cultural and religious beliefs.
Shadows of the Colonial Legacy: The Quest for Economic Independence under Authoritarian Regimes
Author: Ritaj Ibrahim
Authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa exploit historical frameworks to restrict women’s rights and maintain systems that benefit from their labor. In Egypt, for instance, women face persistent employment discrimination, with the private sector favoring men despite no legal mandate. This is partly due to perceived higher costs of hiring women, such as maternity leave. Women also face significant wage gaps and frequent workplace sexual harassment. Patriarchal values, combined with repressive legal systems, create a harsh environment where women struggle to claim their rights, independence, and equality.
Author: Radio Austerity
The video highlights how feminist economics challenges neoliberal and colonial economic systems by valuing unpaid care work, centering gender justice, and promoting economic models based on solidarity, sustainability, and collective well-being.
IMF: 80 Years of Financial Colonialism
Author: Siham Moatallah
After World War II, policies in an increasing number of Third World countries deviated from those of the former colonial powers. This was met with strong opposition from the governments of the major industrial capitalist countries that controlled the International Monetary Fund. These great powers therefore used the Fund and its policies to achieve their own political and strategic interests and to frustrate anyone who challenged their hegemony.
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