Eastern Europe: The ‘other’ geographies in the colonial global economy

Abstract

AbstractThis article engages with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its entanglement with the maintenance of the transatlantic colonial economy established by its powerful imperial neighbours. In doing so, the article signals an argument that the processes of the colonial global economy cannot be reduced to the West, but are also essential in the development of ‘other’ European geographies that have been thought of as detached, non‐complicit and irrelevant to transatlantic narratives of slavery and empires. The focus here is directed towards the benefits of ‘associated trades’ that, when viewed through Charles Mills's ‘racial contract’ framework, offer an alternative longue durée of connected geographies that makes visible Eastern Europe's links to the benefits of the colonial global economy.