Financializing space, spacing financialization

French, Shaun, Leyshon, Andrew and Wainwright, Thomas (2011) Financializing space, spacing financialization. Progress in Human Geography, 35 (6), 798-819. (doi:10.1177/0309132510396749).

Abstract

The paper develops a sympathetic geographical critique of the concept of financialization which seeks to account for the growing influence of financial markets over the unfolding of economy, polity and society. Processes of financialization are claimed to be manifest at a number of scales, from higher levels of instability within the economy as a whole, through pressure exerted on corporations by capital markets, to the equity effects of the financial system on individuals and households. In seeking to explain change within contemporary society, financialization has circulated less widely than similar and related concepts such as neoliberalization. While financialization has the potential to unite researchers across cognate social science fields, thereby building critical mass and recognition within social studies of money and finance, we argue that research has been insufficiently attentive to space and place, both in terms of processes and effects. Financialization is a profoundly spatial phenomenon, representing as it does the search for a spatial-temporal fix, or quasi-resolution of the crisis tendencies of contemporary capitalism. The paper explores a number of possibly fruitful directions for work on financialization, focusing in particular on the idea of financial ecologies.

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