https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8202-1355
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ABSTRACT
This special issue addresses a series of post-2008 financial developments by mobilising the concept of the tale, understood as a discursive artefact composed of a meaningful story or script that serves to separate good from evil, make sense of historical situations, stimulate action, and prefigure scenarios. Unlike standard workplace narratives, which are useful for practical decision-making, tales have strong collective and political connotations. As such, they assume two distinct forms: tales of ‘experiment,’ stemming from innovative projects that seek to transform the financial system from within, and tales of ‘defiance,’ which deal with the more ample changes that horizontal and disobedient practices prefigure. Several analytical coordinates are proposed in order to capture the semiotic and pragmatic natures of the tale. Regarding semiotics, tales involve not only themes and motifs but also polysemic metaphors and what are here defined as processes of characterisation, through which persons or institutions are positioned as characters and assume specific roles within a story. As for the pragmatic dimension, tales mobilise people toward specific functions and address audiences while also relying on material infrastructure to embed some of the content they convey.
Acknowledgements
This special issue results from the workshop ‘Tales of transformation: the politics, morals and technologies of contemporary finance,’ held at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Lisbon in March 2019. The workshop was organised as the final event of the research project ‘Finance Beyond Fact and Fiction: Financial Transformation in Post-2008 Europe,’ funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/IVC/ANT/4520/2014). The authors would like to express their deepest thanks to Carolyn Hardin, Darren Umney, and Liz McFall for their encouragement, constructive criticism, and continuous editorial support. All remaining blunders are our own responsibility.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Daniel Seabra Lopes
Daniel Seabra Lopes is Assistant Professor at the School of Economics and Management and a researcher at the CSG-SOCIUS, University of Lisbon. He holds a PhD in Cultural and Social Anthropology (New University of Lisbon) and a PhD in Economic and Orgnaizational Sociollogy (University of Lisbon). He has conducted ethnographic research among urban Roma communities and, more recently, in diverse institutional contexts, including retail banks and courts. He has published articles in a number of international journals, including Economy and Society, European Societies, Social Anthropology, Anthropological Quarterly, Cultural Studies and the Journal of Cultural Economy.
Inês Faria
Inês Faria is a researcher at the CSG-SOCIUS/ISEG, University of Lisbon. Inês has a PhD in Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, focusing on reproductive health and reproductive technologies. Since 2016 she has been developing research about ‘alternative’ and mainstream financial uses of blockchain technology, she was involved in the project Finance Beyond Fact and Fiction that explored financial changes and continuities in Europe after the 2008 crisis. Currently, Inês continues working about the relations between technology and society regarding the areas of finance, but also of healthcare, respectively in European and sub-Saharan African contexts.
Sandra Faustino
Sandra Faustino is a researcher in the field of Economic Sociology at the CSG-SOCIUS/School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon. With a background in Development Studies (ISCTE-IUL) and Journalism (ESCS-IPL), she is currently doing her PhD research on blockchain-based alternative economies.