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The anthropology of financial intent

Review products

Muniesa F., Liliana D., Ortiz H., Pina-Stranger Á., Paterson F., Bourgoin A., Ehrenstein V., Juven P.-A., Pontille D., Saraç-Lesavre B. and Yon G., Capitalization: A Cultural Guide, Paris, Mines Paris Tech., 2017, 167 pp., €20.00 (pbk), ISBN 978-2-35671-422-0

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Paul Robert Gilbert
Paul Robert Gilbert*
Affiliation:
University of Brighton, UK
*
Corresponding author: Paul Robert Gilbert, School of Environment & Technology, University of Brighton, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 4GJ Email: p.gilbert@brighton.ac.uk
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Abstract

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Much has been learned about calculation, commodification and marketization from the social studies of markets and finance. But what of capitalization? What is distinctive about this mode of valuation and the reality it impels? What does it mean to live under the ‘asset condition’? In Capitalization: A Cultural Guide, Fabian Muniesa and his colleagues at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation take us on a tour across multiple continents and several centuries, introducing us to capitalization as a ‘cultural syndrome’. Their pragmatist enquiry involves tracing capitalization via the scenarios in which value is created, and the gaze that stimulates such value-creation. The result is a field guide to the terrain of capitalization that integrates anthropological work on the dramaturgy of finance with sociological attention to the technicalities of valuation. The stage is set for further investigation into the uneven distribution of the capacity to capitalize and its consequences.

Keywords

Capitalizationasset conditionethnography of finance
Type
Review essay
Information
Finance and Society , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , 2017 , pp. 91 - 98
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

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