Early Career Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick
Associate Editor, Journal of Cultural Economy
Organising Committee Member, Warwick Critical Finance Group

Research Interests

• International Political Economy
• Everyday Politics of Debt and Credit
• Digital Economy and Data Politics
• Democracy and Economic Citizenship
• Global and Ordinary Ethics

Overview

A political economist focused on the everyday politics of finance, Lauren holds interdisciplinary research and teaching interests in cultural economy, ethics, and social and political theory.

Lauren is Associate Editor at the Journal of Cultural Economy and has written on the everyday politics of debt and credit, financial resistance, and digitally-mediated social and alternative finance.

Her doctoral research was awarded the ECPR’s Jean Blondel PhD Prize for the best thesis in politics (2018). Her current book project examines the growth of new forms of resistance to debt in the afterlives of the global financial crisis. Her latest research project examines the contemporary turn to digital technologies and data politics to secure financial relationships between citizens and the state.

Publications

Forthcoming. ‘Experiments in Relational Finance: Harnessing the Social in Everyday Debt and Credit’, Theory, Culture & Society (with Chris Clarke)

Forthcoming. ‘Social Finance Meets Financial Innovation: Contemporary Experiments in Payments, Money and Debt’, Theory, Culture & Society [Introduction to guest edited Special Section] (with Chris Clarke)

Forthcoming. ‘Technologies of Relational Finance’, Special Section of Theory, Culture & Society. Guest edited by Chris Clarke and Lauren Tooker. Contributors: Chris Clarke, Nigel Dodd, Bill Maurer, Scott Mainwaring, Taylor Nelms, Lana Swartz, Lauren Tooker

2016. Lauren Tooker and Bill Maurer. ‘The Pragmatics of Payment: Adventures in First-Person Economy with Bill Maurer, Journal of Cultural Economy 9(3): 337-345

Fellowships, Funding and Awards

ECPR Jean Blondel PhD Prize for best thesis in politics, 2018

Early Career Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, 2017 – 2018

Visiting Scholar, New School for Social Research, New York City, 2014 – 2015 Spring Term

Warwick Transatlantic Fellow, Humanities Research Center, University of Warwick, 2014 – 2015

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellow, US Social Science Research Council, 2013 – 2014

GEM Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Research Fellow, European Commission, 2012 – 2015

Teaching and Public Engagement

Lauren regularly speaks on finance and debt at public events and participates in an action research collective working on the same topics. She has taught nine modules in International Political Economy, Security Studies, Politics and Critical Business Studies and emphasises imaginative and critical thinking, example-based learning, and formative feedback in her teaching practice.

Lauren Tooker, Institute of Advanced Study Early Career Fellow

BA(Hons) (Auckland), MA (Auckland), PhD (Warwick/Université libre de Bruxelles)

l dot tooker at warwick dot ac dot uk