Kirstin Munro

Kirstin Munro
Critical Political Economist

Background

I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley. The major theme of my research is the overlapping relationships between people, the economy, and the environment. An econometrician by training, I use both quantitative and qualitative methods in my work. I am interested in questions related to:

  • The production, distribution, and consumption of energy, and its relationship to environmental problems;
  • Labor, both paid and unpaid, and its relationship to consumption and production processes;
  • The economic growth and development of regions, and its relationship to social, economic, and environmental problems; and
  • Critiques of individual, firm, and government-scale sustainability efforts.

While my research is grounded in a disciplinary perspective thanks to my graduate training in economics, both the methods and substance of my work are shaped by insights from relevant social theory and economic inquiry outside the mainstream. I serve on the Editorial Board of The Review of Radical Political Economics and the Editorial Advisory Boards of Global Political Economy and the Critical Theory and the Critique of Society Book Series.

Publications

Munro, Kirstin. (2022). The Production of Everyday Life in Eco-Conscious Households: Compromise, Conflict and Complicity. University of Bristol Press (Anticipated Winter 2022-23)

Munro, Kirstin. (2022). "Social Reproduction," in Riccardo Bellofiore and Tommaso Redolfi Riva, eds. Marx: Key Concepts. Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming

O'Kane, Chris & Kirstin Munro. (2022). "Marxian economics and the Critique of Political Economy," in Werner Bonefeld and Chris O'Kane, eds. Adorno and Marx: Negative Dialectics and the Critique of Political Economy. Bloomsbury.

Munro, Kirstin. (2022). "Unproductive workers, 'life-making,' and state repression," in Eva Nanopoulos, Rafael Khachaturian, Rob Hunter, & Umut Ozsu,eds. The State Today: Politics, History, Law. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.

Munro, Kirstin & Chris O'Kane (2022). "The Artisan Economy and The New Spirit of Capitalism," Critical Sociology 48(1):37-53.

Munro, Kirstin."Overaccumulation, Crisis, and the Contradictions of Household Waste Sorting," Capital & Class 46(1): 115-131.

Munro, Kirstin. (2021). "Unproductive Workers and State Repression," Review of Radical Political Economics, 53(4): 623-630.

Munro, Kirstin (2021). Solid waste management practices and their meanings in ecologically conscious households. Environment & Planning: E, 4(4):1515-1532.

Munro, Kirstin (2021). The Welfare State and the Bourgeois Family-Household. Science & Society 85(2), 199-206.

Munro, Kirstin (2020). Review of Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women's Work (Brown 2019) & Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism against the Family (Lewis 2019). Review of Political Economy, 31(3): 474-478.

Munro, Kirstin (2019). 'Social Reproduction Theory', Social Reproduction, and Household Production. Science & Society, 83(4): 451-468.

Munro, Kirstin (2018). Unwaged Work and the Production of Sustainability in Eco-Conscious Households. Review of Radical Political Economics, 50(4):675- 682.

Munro, Kirstin & George Tolley (2018). Property Values and Tax Rates near Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage. Energy Policy, 123: 433-442.

Munro, Kirstin & Chris O'Kane (2017). Autonomy and Creativity in the Artisan Economy and the New Spirit of Capitalism. Review of Radical Political Economics, 49(4): 582-590.

Munro, Kirstin (2017). Hegemonic stories in environmental advocacy testimonials. Energy Research & Social Science, 31: 233-239.

Personal

  • I live with my occasional co-author Chris and our Cardigan Welsh corgis, Wilson and Wendy.
  • In my free time, I'm knitting, sewing, watching horrible reality TV, and learning to throw pottery on the wheel.
  • I love flexidiscs and fanzines and the international pop underground.