Megha Summer Pappachen
Program Area(s): Political Theory; International Relations
Regional Specialization(s): Africa; Asia; Middle East; United States; Latin America
Dissertation Title:
Democracy of the Oppressed: Theorizing Labor Unions in Transnational Struggle
Dissertation Committee: Loubna El Amine (Chair); Wendy Pearlman, Erin Pineda, Steven Klein
I work from the groundwork of Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial theory to study democracy within the international political economy. My dissertation proposes principles of a democracy of the oppressed, as already practiced by labor unions and resistance organizations across the world. I argue that their practices offer an alternative collective decision making guide to that offered by liberal democracy. Methodologically, I employ ethnography and oral history as interpretive companions to classic methods in political theory and philosophy.
Conference Presentations:
- "Ideology, Unity, and Leadership: Democracy of the Oppressed." Chicago Ethnography Conference, April 2025.
- "Farmers Unions in Delhi: Democracy of the Oppressed." National Women's Studies Conference, November 2024.
- "Was Marx a Feminist? Housework and Reproduction in Marx's Capital." Clarifying the Struggle for Socialism: Uses and Misuses of Marx’s Capital by the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, the Critical Theory Workshop, and International Manifesto Group, February 2022.
- "Book Symposium: Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies." American Education Research Association, April 2022
Publications:
- Pappachen, Megha Summer. "Historical Materialism: A Postdigital Philosophical Method" in From the Academy to the Streets: Notes from a Working Class Think Tank. Edited by Colin Jenkins, Iskra Books, 2025. https://www.iskrabooks.org/hampton-reader
- Pappachen, Summer. "The Marxist Theory of the State: An Introduction." Monthly Review, July 7, 2023. https://mronline.org/2023/07/07/the-marxist-theory-of-the-state-an-introduction/
- Megha Summer Pappachen & Derek R. Ford. "Spreading Stupidity: Intellectual Disability and Anti-Imperialist Resistance to Bioinformational Capitalism." Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95006-4_13
- Megha Summer Pappachen. "What is Imperialism? An Introduction." Fundamentals of Marxism: Liberation School, September 20, 2021. https://www.liberationschool.org/09-what-is-imperialism-html-2/.
- Megha Summer Pappachen. "Housework for Revolutionaries: Between Theory and Experience." Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University, 2020. https://scholarship.depauw.
edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=1155&context= studentresearch - Summer Pappachen. "The Struggle for the International Hotel." Breaking the Chains Magazine, Winter 2021-22, Vol. 6 No. 2, 31-34. https://www.breakingthechainsmag.org/vol-6-no-2-til-all-the-flowers-bloom/