The common places of alternative finance: assemblages, stoppages, and the political mobilisation of space

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the role of physical settings in the inculcation of militant practices consonant with specific discourses. To do so, it draws on firsthand empirical information derived from a multi-sited ethnographic case study of an international cooperative that formed in Europe in the aftermath of the Euro crisis and deployed decentralised cryptocurrencies and alternative digital banking. Here, space is viewed as a relevant material resource that can be occupied and organised to enable the telling of a particular story of revolution, redistribution, and horizontality, while simultaneously helping to actualise that story. The materiality of space is thus related to its expressivity and seen as contributing to both an experience of militancy and the recurrence of the underlying political tale. This approach stresses reminiscence rather than becoming; the existential dimensions of interaction and affection rather than the ontological one of ever-evolving sociotechnical assemblages. On such grounds, the article proposes the concept of stoppage to account for the repetition of specific spatial dispositions that configure extra-institutional immersive environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Fintech
• space
• assemblage
• narrative
• politics
• ethnography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) through the following grants: SFRH/BPD/78438/2011, PTDC/IVC-ANT/4520/2014 and UIDB/04521/2020.

Notes on contributors

Daniel Seabra Lopes

Daniel Seabra Lopes is an anthropologist and sociologist who teaches and researches at the School of Economics and Management at the University of Lisbon. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork 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.