Resilience, Market Subjects and Performative Politics

03/18/18 • 86 min

The post-crisis period has seen a growing emphasis on nurturing complex adaptive (financial) networks that have the ability to ‘bounce back’ in stressful situations. What are the political consequences of this impetus? A re-invention of neo-liberalism in disciplinary terms or a proliferation of alternatives to market-centrism? Or something else?
Against this backdrop, John Morris and James Brassett discussed the (cultural) production of resilient financial systems and market subjects. The session was chaired by Marco Andreu (Warwick's PAIS Department).

Previous Episode

Lauren Tooker: Going to uncomfortable places: Redemptive critique and ordinary agency

Lauren Tooker began by addressing the problematic of developing a reflexive critique of finance. While we might want to move beyond a form of critique that assigns the academic a seemingly objective view on finance from above, it is often hard to take on a more reflexive position, because it forces us to engage with the uncomfortable contradictions and ambiguities in the field. Financial resistance movements can be confronted by problems of gender and race; neoliberal imaginaries sometimes yield surprising democratic politics. To develop a sensitivity to such counter intuitive findings, Tooker suggests moving away from a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ towards more reflexive forms of ‘redemptive critique’. The challenge to build such a situated approach relates to a second challenge highlighted by Tooker - to conceive of ordinary agency. Despite the recent (re-)turn to the everyday in IPE, ordinary agency is often not taken seriously. The challenge is an approach that allows us to think with and alongside people, rather than for them. Finally, Tooker suggested a need to move from the apparent divide between ‘high’ and ‘low’ finance to focus on the porous interface between public and private, so as to ask critical political questions of finance.

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Gendered flexitime in asset finance - Q&A

The talk presented empirical findings on the use of flexitime policies in financial institutions as a way to manage workload fluctuations around month-end. Because financial institutions are dealing in financial transactions, month-end becomes an exceptionally busy and stressful time with all parties clamouring to meet deadlines before the books are closed. Not to mention the deadlines imposed by the banks, the authorisations required by law, and the stringent audits, all of which have tightened since the economic crisis. However, while the use of flexitime may work well for those who can be flexible, i.e. young, ambitious employees, it works less well for those who cannot be flexible, i.e. mothers of young children, raising some important questions about finance sector culture, as well as about gender inequality therein.
Speaker: Heather Griffiths is a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Her broad research interests are in gender and work, work life balance and feminist theory. Her PhD research looks at flexible working policies within the finance sector, and whether such policies will be supported by finance sector culture, as well as how they impact on gender equality and work life balance both at work and in the home.