Money Talk, Moral Talk: The Actualization of Hostile Worlds

• In Event: 307 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology: Markets, Movements, Metrics of Evaluation

Abstract

Over the last several decades, economic sociologists have successfully combated hostile worlds theory by demonstrating that economic actors frequently mix money and sentiment without their mutual corruption. However, economic sociologists may also be minimizing how difficult it can be for individuals to mix their sentimental and economic lives. While these worlds necessarily collide, in some cases individuals actively erect a boundary between them, effectively enacting hostile worlds theory. Economic sociologists need to examine how individuals in their everyday economic lives think about and create this boundary. With data that is part of a larger comparative project between non-religious individuals and evangelicals, this paper first replicates traditional economic sociology theories and demonstrates how individuals create integrated worlds by discussing money in morally palatable ways and attaching different meanings to money. Second, I add to traditional analysis by arguing that individuals also actualize hostile worlds by 1) avoiding financial conversations, 2) recommending separation, and 3) protecting the sacred. I further argue that individuals negotiate the boundary and cope with the tension between these porous worlds differently, such that non-religious individuals are more likely to create a boundary that separates sentiment and finance into two spheres, side-by-side, whereas evangelicals are more likely to erect more porous, hierarchical boundaries with discourses that distinguish religious beliefs and relationships as more important than finances. Future research should examine how individuals experience their financial and sentimental worlds as if they are hostile, and the differential techniques deployed to maintain either their integration or their separation.

Author

• Lindsay Jean DePalma, University of California- San Diego