Economics and the family: a postcolonial perspective

A postcolonial perspective in the history of economic thought reveals the ways in which racial theory was built into the foundations of neoclassical economics. Neoclassical economics emerged within the context of nineteenth-century European colonisation and this paper connects the material practices of colonisation in Australia to this emerging body of theory. In particular, the paper focuses on the Western breadwinner/dependent family ideal that was deeply embedded within economic visions of development, prosperity and progress. I argue that neoclassical economics naturalised and justified colonial practices that sought to impose the homogeneity of culture, desires and needs used to justify the displacement and subordination of the colonised Aborigines.