The character of the market: Social identities in colonial economies

Abstract

Market economies rely on social institutions which mediate between the individual and the market. The concept of the market associated with western economic liberalism is deeply embedded in a set of ideas about “human nature” and about social institutions. This paper examines ideas about the market in two different colonial situations: the 18th Century French island colonies of the Indian Ocean, and 20th Century British colonial Africa. It is argued that, in both cases, a crucial issue was the relationship between persons and commodities; that the concept of the market carries within it the idea of a sphere of affective relations in which the rules of the market are not appropriately applied; that the content of this non‐market sphere and the determinants of its boundaries vary historically and culturally, and that at moments of economic crisis the very negotiability of these boundaries causes unease and conflict.

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