Financial capital and ghosts of empire: editorial

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this special issue, we take up the metaphor of the ghost to identify the seemingly intangible yet undeniable persistence of racism, empire and colonialism in finance and the global capitalist economy. In the aftermath of a world system built through colonialism, imperialism and their race-making projects, we all emerge haunted by racial colonialism. Despite this differently-expressed but shared global condition, we also live in a world marked by a willed forgetfulness, occurring more broadly, and especially in fields like economics and political economy. We argue that in order to understand the cultural economy one must confront the ghostly aspects of it. This special issue contributes to the cultural economy of finance by demonstrating pivotal ways in which finance actually works. We do so by refracting the lens of contemporary financial activity to reveal hidden ghostly power relations connecting the past of empire and colonialism with the present of financialisation and coloniality.