Rajeev "Raj" Patel (born 1972) is a

British Indian British Indians are citizens of the United Kingdom (UK) whose ancestral roots are from India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian origin as well as Indian people, Indians who have migrated to the UK. Today, Indians comprise ...

academic,

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, activist and writer who has lived and worked in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

for extended periods. He has been referred to as "the rock star of social justice writing."

Early life and education

Born to a mother from

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

and a father from Fiji,About himself at ''21 minuti''
''(Retrieved on 9 February 2010.)'' he grew up in

Golders Green Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th century and ea ...

in north-west London where his family ran a

corner shop A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ...

. Patel received a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), from

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

, and a master's degree from the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 mill ...

, and gained his PhD in Development Sociology from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

in 2002. As part of his academic training, Patel worked at the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...

, and the United Nations. He has since become an outspoken public critic of all of these organisations, and reports having been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against his former employers.Citizine
''(Retrieved on 8 February 2010.)''

Career

Patel is an educator and academic. He has written articles and books. He is possibly best known for his 2008 book, ''Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System''. In 2009, he published '' The Value of Nothing'' which was on ''The New York Times'' best-seller list during February 2010. In 2017, he published, with co-author , '' A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet'' (University of California Press). He has been a visiting scholar at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. Patel is listed as a Research Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas at Austin.

Activism

Patel was one of many organizers in the

1999 protests File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school sho ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, Washington, and has organised in support of food sovereignty. More recently he has resided and worked extensively in Zimbabwe and in South Africa. He was refused a visa extension by the Mugabe regime for his political involvement with the pro-democracy movement. He is associated through his work on food with the Via Campesina movement, and through his work on urban poverty and resistance with

Abahlali baseMjondolo Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which organises land occupations, builds communes

and the now defunct Landless Peoples Movement in South Africa. Patel has written a number of criticisms of various aspects of the policies and research methods of the World Bank and was a co-editor, with Christopher Brooke, of the online leftist webzine ''The Voice of the Turtle''.

Film appearances

In 2012, he appeared in the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

documentary '' Payback'', based on

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, ...

's '' Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth'', which premiered at the

2012 Sundance Film Festival The 2012 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 until January 29, 2012 in Park City, Utah. 64 short films were selected for the festival from 7,675 submissions, including 27 international shorts from 3,592 submissions. Non-competition ...

. He appears in the documentary film '' A Place at the Table'' which opened in the US on 1 March 2013.

Honours and awards

In 2007 he was invited to give the keynote address at the University of

graduation ceremony. He administers the organisation's website. In 2008 he was asked to testify on the global food crisis before the House Financial Services Committee in the USA. In 2009 he joined the advisory board of Corporate Accountability International's Value the Meal campaign. In January 2010 some adherents of Share International, following an announcement by Benjamin Creme, concluded that Patel could be the Maitreya. Patel denied being the Maitreya.

Political views

Patel is a libertarian socialist and has described himself as "someone who has very strong anarchist sympathies." In his book '' The Value of Nothing'' he praised the grassroots

participatory democracy Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected rep ...

practised in the Zapatista Councils of Good Government in southern Mexico and has advocated similar decentralist models of economic democracy and confederal administration as templates to go by for

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

movements in the

global north Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

. He described himself in 2010 as "not a communist

r socialist R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irel ...

... just open minded". Nonetheless, the analysis of ''A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet'', published seven years later, locates its concept of "cheapness" within a Marxist framework. According to the authors, "Capitalism values only what it can count, and it can count only dollars. Every capitalist wants to invest as little and profit as much as possible. For capitalism, this means that the whole system thrives when powerful states and capitalists can reorganize global nature, invest as little as they can, and receive as much food, work, energy, and raw materials with as little disruption as possible." This extrapolates a key formulation by Marx: “The battle of competition is fought by the cheapening of commodities.”

Quotes

Personal life

Patel became a

US citizen Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitut ...

on 7 January 2010. In an interview with ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

s Lauren Collins, he considers himself an atheist Hindu.

Books

*''

Stuffed and Starved ''Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System'' is a non-fiction book written by Raj Patel. It was published in 2008 by Melville House Publishing. ''Stuffed and Starved'' looks at the inequities of the world food system from ...

: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System'' (2008) *''Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice'', Eric Holt Giménez, Raj Patel (2009) *''Food Rebellions!: Forging Food Sovereignty to Solve the Global Food Crisis'' (2009) *'' The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy'' (2010) *Forward to '' No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way'' by the

Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers Symphony Way Informal Settlement was a small community of pavement dwellers Pavement dwellers refers to informal housing built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets. The structures use the walls or fences which separate properties from t ...

(2011) *'' A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet'' (2017), with Jason W. Moore *''Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice'' (2021), with

Rupa Marya Rupa and the April Fishes is a global alternative group based in San Francisco, California, fronted by composer, singer and guitarist Rupa Marya. The group's songs are a mixture of musical styles ranging from jazz to punk to reggae to chanson, wi ...

References

External links

Raj Patel's websiteStuffed & Starved WebsiteA list of journalism available online by Raj Patel
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Patel, Raj 1972 births Living people Abahlali baseMjondolo members Alumni of the London School of Economics Alumni of the University of Oxford Anti-consumerists Anti-globalization activists Anti-globalization writers British anarchists British atheists British democracy activists 21st-century British economists British food writers British Hindus British political writers British social commentators British socialists British sociologists Cornell University alumni Criticism of capitalism Deified people English people of Indian descent Gujarati people Libertarian socialists Writers from London