ABSTRACT
Since the early 1990s, historians, anthropologists and literary critics have expanded our understanding of the motives for empire-building, and the nature and consequences of the colonial encounter. They have urged us to look at imperialism as something which happens both in the metropole and in the colonies, and to regard colonialism as a form of exchange between the colonised and coloniser. These shifts have significantly altered the study of imperial economies and cultures. Where once commodities were regarded as quantifiable evidence of the value of colonies, they are now studied in their own right as carriers of meaning, sites of contestation and lenses through which we can see the making and unmaking of imperial, sub- and trans-imperial relationships. This new approach to commodities has been premised upon a dynamic understanding of the consumer and consumerism as critical to the history of imperialism.
