ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to draw out Harriet Martineau’s complex relationship to political economy, capitalism, and imperialism, as well as the way in which she privileges the voices of the dispossessed and disenfranchised. Waste for commercial gain was one of Martineau’s most crucial concerns, one she addressed in terms of the disempowerment and delegitimizing of rightful owners alongside vexed understandings of indolence and non-utility of resources. The flaw of political economy within the colonial setting is that it prevents the development of ambition and desire because there is no possibility of the colonized being able to repossess their land and its resources. In a colonial setting, in which the most basic needs are appropriated through imperialism, food security becomes central to the understanding of political economy. The frustration of the Cingalese women gestures towards rebellion, as much as Rayo’s act of burning the cinnamon was potentially self-destructive.
