Abstract

The talk takes its cue from the regulatory response to the financial crisis of 2008, and in particular the assumption that curbing the speculative ‘excesses’ of the financial sphere is necessary for restoring a healthy productive system, endowed with real values as distinct from those produced by financial markets. Drawing on theoretical insights from Social Studies of Finance and Post-Workerism, it questions the regulation of the financial sphere insofar as its excesses are juxtaposed to some notion of economic normality. Given the difficulty to neatly distinguish between the two spheres, the talk considers the limits of our current conceptualisations of value production and measurement, with specific reference to arrangements in the area of labour. It argues that, when thinking about the kind of arrangements that might be able to affect current value making processes, we need to pay attention to the spatio-temporal connections that make the global economy, as well as the racial, gender, and class articulations of the social reproductive field within it.

A buffet lunch will be served.