Abstract

Postcolonial approaches to understanding economies are of increasing academic and political significance as questions about the nature of globalisation, transnational flows of capital and workers and the making and re-making of territorial borders assume centre stage in debates about contemporary economies and policy. Despite the growing academic and political urgency in understanding how 'other' cultures encounter 'the west', economics-oriented approaches within social sciences have been slow to engage with the ideas and challenges posed by postcolonial critiques. In turn, postcolonial approaches have been criticised for their simplistic treatment of 'the economic' and for not engaging with existing economic analyses of poverty and wealth creation. Utilising examples drawn from India to Latin America, and bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, including Geography, Economics, Development Studies, History and Women's Studies, Postcolonial Economies breaks new ground in providing a space for nascent debates about postcolonialism and its treatment of 'the economic'.
'This book signals that postcolonialism has lost none of its potential to provoke and surprise; setting fresh agendas.' James D Sidaway, University of Amsterdam 'This innovative collection rises to the theoretical and methodological challenge of bringing together into constructive dialogue the often antagonistic literatures on postcolonialism and (political) economy.' Jo Sharp, University of Glasgow 'This collection presents an exciting mix of scholars attuned to the productivity of postcolonial thinking who are listening, watching, moving around and toward economies in new ways.' Katherine Gibson, Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy University of Western Sydney
Jane Pollard has published articles in journals such as Antipode, Area, the Journal of Economic Geography, Environment and Planning A, Geoforum, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers and Urban Studies. She sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Economic Geography, Geography Compass and Growth and Change. Cheryl McEwan is the author of Gender, Geography and Empire (2000) and Postcolonialism and Development (2008), and is co-editor of Postcolonial Geographies (2002). She is currently Editor (Development Section) of Geography Compass and sits of the Editorial Board of the RGS-IBG/Blackwell Book Series. Alex Hughes is Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography at Newcastle University in the UK. She is co-editor (with Suzanne Reimer) of Geographies of Commodity Chains (2004).