I
find it so validating to find synergies between readings that are assigned for
two different classes. Karen Ho’s, Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, is
one of our readings for this class that supports important ideas I am discussing
in another class.
My
other class is focused on performance ethnography, so lately I’ve been thinking
about the performative nature of spaces. What Ho does so well in the
introduction and in Chapters 1 and 2 is to unpack Wall Street (she defines it
as being the “concentration of financial institutions”), so that we can understand
the performance at the center of “believing.” Ho lets us see how the mythos of
market capitalism is not only perpetuated by Wall Street, but how Wall Street
shapes a larger social reality.
On
page 36, Ho introduces Michel Callon and his argument that status quo financial
economics are more than abstract models and theories--they are “real” in the
sense that economic practice “socially constructs the kinds of conditions and
frames which allow economic thought to be actualized.” Homo economicus in
action.
The
Wall Street narrative is so embedded within our culture that few are able,
interested, or dare to see our economic system and practices as being as naked
as the Emperor with his “new clothes” on. As an ethnographer, Ho looks at the “infallibility
and necessity” story performed by Wall Street. She connects the aggressive recruiting
of Harvard and Princeton’s top students as the basis for building a “culture of
smartness” (p 40) which she asserts is at the center of understanding how Wall
Street creates itself as an unquestionable authority. This is one example of how
Wall Street performs trust and respect in a way that influences society. The
qualities attributed to the “best and brightest”--beginning with the notion
that these qualities are effectively tied to universities that are elitist to
begin with--construct a reality that serves to privilege networks (and as such,
the interests of) white, economically advantaged men.
On Callon, something that has been mentioned on many of the posts, the notion of performativity of economics and economic models is crucial. In other words, the notion that the market that we have is made by people, formulas, policy decisions - rather than existing there in and of itself.
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