What Makes a Financial Subject? Exploratory Insights from Singapore

• In Event: 118 - Section on Economic Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 17. Selfhood

Abstract

In recent years, particularly after the financial crisis of 2008, there has been an increasing interest in promoting mass financial literacy. Proponents of financial literacy education have asserted that a financially literate population helps to stabilize the economy, while critics of neoliberalism have argued that financial literacy education merely creates a financially literate subject that can be incorporated into regimes of financial governance. This paper builds on the latter’s critical insights and asks what exactly it means to be a financial subject. Using data gathered from Singapore, I propose two characteristics of financial literacy. First, financial subjectivity is forged and situated within particular macro-political and institutional contexts. Second, financial subjectivity comprises the sense of obligation to be financially active, and to develop a personally meaningful set of priorities and values.

Author

• Tiffany Jordan Chuang May, University of Michigan