Simon Rakei is a PhD Student in Anthropology and History, and a member of the Informal Sustainability Lab. He studies financial capital outflows from Southern African mineral extractives and the modern formation of non-sovereign tax haven states in the Caribbean. His work explores this Africa-Caribbean connection to historicise and theorise international political economy, intellectual history, and political thought.

Simon obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Financial Accounting with Honours in Taxation at the University of Cape Town. He was signed with Ernst and Young (EY), was the winner of the EY Top Ten Student of the Year Award, and a Finalist of the EY Young Tax Professional of the Year Regional Runner-up.

Thereafter Simon worked with unions and social movements which were a part of the Economic Justice Network in Southern Africa tackling profit shifting, and led research and advocacy on corporate mining taxation. Simultaneously, he completed a master’s in Sociology and wrote his MA dissertation on a developmental history of the British Virgin Islands.

For his doctoral research, Simon will be aiming to use the ambitions of the New International Economic Order as a departing point to revisit the political thought which attempted to grapple with and theorise conditions that can secure freedom and a just world.