Keston K. Perry

Areas of Expertise

Plantation Economy Tradition

Reparations

Black Radicalisms

Race and Climate change

Caribbean Economic History

About

As a political economist, Dr Perry’s work is specialized in Caribbean economic thought, race and climate change in the Caribbean and marginalized communities. Dr. Perry’s work is inspired by Caribbean scholars like Lloyd Best, Sylvia Wynter, Norman Girvan, Rex Nettleford, and Audre Lorde among others, whose insights feature in his teaching, research and public scholarship.

Grounded in Caribbean economic and social sciences tradition, this work recognizes that Caribbean societies which are racialized, fetishized, gendered and marginalized face immense and myriad environmental, political and economic challenges due to histories of colonialism, enslavement, post-colonial fracturing, neoliberal globalization and their enduring marginal position in the world economic system. Caribbean peoples and movements have nonetheless endured, thrived and resisted oppressive systems and their continuing legacies. He/they connect these understandings to contemporary climate crises to foster interdisciplinary scholarly engagement.

Born and nurtured in the Caribbean, Dr Perry’s experiences as working class, queer, first-gen college graduate, and from the Global South shapes how he/they navigate the world. Dr. Perry’s appreciation of Caribbean economic history, quantitative and qualitative data and methods informs his scholarship and public engagement. Dr. Perry is developing new approaches and deepening analyses of current problems in his project ‘Climate Reparations, Justice and Reparative Ecologies in the Caribbean’. He/they utilize subversive methods to unsettle ideological and colonialist premises of economic data and knowledge claims, as well as misapprehensions in order to make a distinctive contribution to the Black Radical and Plantation Economy Traditions. This work advances political economic insights to build an emancipatory and reparative approach to social justice and climate equity. He/they have previously taught at the University of the West of England, UK and the University of the West Indies and was a postdoctoral scholar at the Climate Policy Lab, Fletcher School, Tufts University.

His academic, critical and other musings can be found on Twitter at @radical_carib.