Indigenous Economies and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

FAIN: FT-52355-04

Emily Anne Haddad
University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD 57069-2390)

Despite recent research, the relationship between economics and the British empire continues to provoke controversy. What bearing did economic matters have on Britons' perceptions of imperial undertakings and of themselves as imperialists? My project explores this question by analyzing literary portrayals of the economies of regions within the imperial sphere. In poetry, travel narratives, and fiction, writers' depictions of local economies serve variously to question, motivate, justify, and even enable imperial practice. Assumptions about indigenous economies play a crucial-but insufficiently recognized-role in determining nineteenth-century British culture's understanding of and rationales for imperialism.