Between political economy and postcolonial theory: first encounters

Since the late 1970s, postcolonial theory has flourished across various disciplines, and has evolved into an institutionalised force in academic life (Lazarus, 2004; Parry, 2004). Although, at its beginning its perceived association was mostly with literary and cultural studies, currently the influence of postcolonial theory can be said to encompass disciplines such as geography, anthropology, political science as well as sociology. In short, in a period of about three decades postcolonial theory has swept through the spectrum of social sciences and humanities. In this period of significant intellectual transformation, economics proved to be the discipline most resistant to change. This intransigence is partly conditioned by the history of the discipline, its place in the evolution and spread of capitalism through colonialism and imperialism, and, without a doubt, its self-perception as a ‘science’, all of which need to be understood, theorised and transformed. This symposium was inspired in part by that desire to push open the boundaries of the discipline that it so fiercely defends to these interdisciplinary insights. The appropriation of central insights of postcolonial works into economics requires a fundamental reworking of the discipline into one that continuously reflects on its history, on its particular position and role within the power structure of society and on its epistemological and ontological assumptions. Each one of the essays in the symposium touches on some or all of these dimensions.