Dr. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and Chair Professor of Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo. He is Associate Editor of the journal
World Development, and serves on the Climate and Macroeconomics Roundtable of the US National Academy of Sciences, the advisory board of the , the RodneyCommission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice, and the
Lancet Commission on Sustainable Health.
Jason's research focuses on global political economy, inequality, and ecological economics, which are the subjects of his two most recent books: (Penguin, 2017), and (Penguin, 2020), which was listed by the Financial Times and New Scientist as a book of the year.
Jason's ethnographic work focuses on colonialism, anti-colonial struggles and the labour movement in South Africa, which is the subject of his first book, (University of California Press, 2015). He is co-editor of two additional ethnographic volumes: (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2014) and (Berghahn, 2018).
In addition to his academic work, Jason writes regularly for and , and contributes to a number of other online outlets including Al Jazeera, Fast Company, Prospect, Jacobin, Le Monde Diplomatique, New Internationalist, Red Pepper, Truthout, and Monthly Review. His media appearances include , the , the BBC World Service, Sky News All Out Politics, BBC Business Matters, Thinking Allowed, , NPR, Doha Debates, TRT World, the LA Times, , and .
Jason has received a number of teaching awards, including the ASA/HEA National Award for Excellence in Teaching Anthropology, as well as research grants from Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust. He presently holds an ERC Synergy grant for research on post-growth transition.
He is originally from Eswatini.