A Flank Movement in the Understanding of Valuation

Abstract

The sociological understanding of valuation often starts with an idea of value as something that something has by virtue of how people consider it (that is, it is socially constructed, a convention, a social representation, a projection). At some point, however, analysis also often draws a contrast between this sort of appraisal and some other type of value that the thing may have as a result of its own condition (what it costs, how it is made, with what kind of labour, money and materials, what it is worth in relation to objective standards and fundamental metrics). Dissatisfaction with this binary approach has been expressed in various quarters, but the pragmatist contribution of John Dewey provides a particularly useful resource with which to engage with the subject. This article reviews some aspects of this dissatisfaction, with a focus on the pragmatist idea of valuation considered as an action. I discuss this idea in relation to financial valuation, referring in particular to early pedagogical materials on corporation finance elaborated in the context of the professionalization of business administration. Finally I elaborate on the usefulness of a pragmatist stance in the understanding of financial valuation today.

The Role of Valuation Practices for Risk Identification

“…As valuation studies (e.g., Beckert and Aspers 2011;Berthoin Antal, Hutter, and Stark 2015;Helgesson and Muniesa 2013;Muniesa 2011) have made clear, value is neither objective nor subjective. Value is an outcome of intricate social processes of identification, definition, hierarchization, and calculation that condition preferences in more or less determined ways.…”

Unsettling issues: valuing public goods and the production of matters of concern

“…The valuographic project seeks to understand the metrological foldings through which the matters of concern surrounding public goods are negotiated: economic theorising over public goods is just one of many narratives enrolled in the production of value. Indeed, Muniesa's (2011) 'flank movement' in valuation rejects the dichotomy between human valuer and the material object of valuation altogether.…”

Making big promises come true? Articulating and realizing value in synthetic biology

“…What we encounter might be described in terms of tensions arising from the performance of 'a flank movement' in valuation (Muniesa, 2012) -instances where the difference in meaning of value as a noun and valuation as a verb come to the fore. In contrast to the future-oriented ambitions outlined in the previous section, these vignettes highlight the value of synthetic biology not as a static or pre-determined property of the technology, but as a contested and contingent attribution that is always in-the-making.…”

“…In this paper I consider how value in (and the value of) synthetic biology is being constituted and negotiated, through the making (and re-making) of BioBrick TM standard biological parts. Rather than assume a stable or uncontested definition of value, I focus on actions and practices of valuation in synthetic biology -treating value not as a noun but as a verb, to value (Muniesa 2012). What is seen as worth knowing, and to what ends?…”