Deprovincializing racial capitalism: John Crawfurd and settler colonialism in India
Recent literature on racial capitalism has overwhelmingly focused on the Atlantic settler-slave formation, sidelining the history of European imperialism in Asia. This article addresses this blind spot by recovering the aborted project of British settler colonialism in India through the writings of...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3438 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4695/viewcontent/Ince_2021_Deprovincializing_Racial_Capitalism.pdf |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Institution: | Singapore Management University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Recent literature on racial capitalism has overwhelmingly focused on the Atlantic settler-slave formation, sidelining the history of European imperialism in Asia. This article addresses this blind spot by recovering the aborted project of British settler colonialism in India through the writings of its most prominent advocate, John Crawfurd. It is argued that Crawfurd’s vision of a liberal empire in India rejected slavery and indigenous dispossession yet remained deeply racialized in its conception of capital, labor, and value. Crawfurd elaborated a “capital theory of race,” which derived racial categories from a civilizational spectrum keyed to the capitalist organization of production. His proposals accordingly revamped the conventional terms of colonization by representing India as overstocked with labor but vacant of capital and skill that only European settlers could provide. The article concludes with the broader implications of a trans-imperial analytic framework for writing connected histories of racial capitalism and settler colonialism. |
|---|