Speculating on Everyday Life: The Cultural Economy of the Quotidian

Abstract

The economic crisis has generally been understood in terms of financial excess, speculation and fraud. This article suggests that there is a need to decenter this focus on financialization and instead reflect on the crisis as a cultural as much as an economic event. It addresses the normalisation of practices of calculation and investment within everyday life, especially in the figure of the 'citizen-speculator' who is now required to view housing as a site of accumulation and object of speculation, not only for debt-fuelled consumption in the present but also as a source of asset-based welfare in the future.

Gender and Labour in New Times: An Introduction

“…In part this omission has taken place because accumulation via financialisation is not employment intensive (Krippner 2005) and thus does not appear-at least at face value-to connect in any direct or straightforward sense to labouring activities. Given that the rationalities of financialisation are pervasive and not simply delimited to the financial field (Allon 2010), and given too that the financialisation of the economy has coincided with major shifts in arrangements of labour, surely the connections between the two should be a major matter of concern, not least for feminist research.…”

The Appetites of App-Based Finance

“…These virtual credit portals moderate consumers' relationship to their online accounts and everyday flows of debt and credit. App-based banking can be thought of as just the most recent manifestation of the dematerialization of debt and credit, of the financialization of everyday life, and of the integration of capital not only with individuals' every desire but also with their everyday social lives (Langley 2007, Cooper 2008, Allon 2010, Pike and Pollard 2010, French et al 2011, Lapavitsas 2011, Hall 2012. Moreover, in so far as banking apps function as mobile surveillance and data-mining aids for the banking industry, we can imagine a future wherein banking apps figure as digital portals to a networked environment of credit-driven competition wherein banking and paying debt itself becomes 'gamified', giving rise to an even more perfect integration of banking, digital labour, credit production and desirefulfilment (Cohen 2014).…”

Contesting the Financialization of Urban Space: Community Organizations and the Struggle to Preserve Affordable Rental Housing in New York City

“…Even where “real” commodities are involved, profits increasingly accrue through their monetization and integration in financial channels (Fine, ; Gotham, ; Stockhammer, ). This creates a new role for finance in nonfinancial realms: financial institutions and markets have a tremendous influence on contemporary economic, social, and cultural life and individual subjectivities (Aalbers, ; Allon, ; French et al., ; Ron Martin, ; Rutland, ). With the extended reach of finance also comes the transmission of risk and volatility into the nonfinancial, participating in and potentially exacerbating already uneven geographies (Aalbers, ; Pike & Pollard, ).…”