Colonial legacies shaping business ownership

IER's Dr Jamelia Harris and her collaborator, Dr Dexnell Peters of the University of the West Indies, participated in the 6th Biennial Richard Robinson Business History Workshop at the Portland State University. The interdisciplinary workshop fosters in-depth scholarly exchange, by bringing together researchers to critically engage with emerging questions, methodologies, and historiographical debates.

Dr Harris and Dr Peters presented a paper which traces the organisation of business ownership to the colonial period. The paper explores how the definition of 'business' changes over time, and distinguishes between businesses which employ people and those established as own-account workers only in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

The paper argues that legacies embedded in legislation, institutions and culture since 1800 still shape who becomes a business owner, and to some extent, the sectors in which they operate.

The paper is based on research from the project 'Colonial legacies and the labour market in the English-speaking Caribbean'.