Becoming like money: Proximity and the social aesthetics of “moneyness”

Zickgraf, Jens (2017): Becoming like money: Proximity and the social aesthetics of “moneyness”. In: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Vol. 7, No. 1: pp. 303-326

Abstract

In this article I take the scene of a group of South Indian villagers perceiving and counting a heap of collective money as a starting point to look at qualitative, subjective, and contextual variations through which money manifests itself as valued properties, circuits, performances, acts, repertoires, and capacities in social and personal life. As I argue, this requires us to scrutinize the shifting proximities between money objects and money subjects. I trace these through the notion of “moneyness,” and more precisely through the relational property of being (or getting) “in,” “at,” and “out” of what money is, becomes, and represents.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Keywords: money; moneyness; value and values; form and abstraction; becoming and being
• Faculties: Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Ethnology
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• ISSN: 2049-1115
• Language: English