Geographies of Money and Payment

• Sarah Hall – University of Nottingham – sarah.hall@nottingham.ac.uk
• Paul Langley – Durham University – paul.langley@durham.ac.uk

During the mid-1990s and confronted by a prevailing productivism, Economic Geographers established a wide-reaching research agenda focused on the geographies of money and finance. Subsequent and significant growth in Economic Geography research has nonetheless tended to narrow the parameters of this agenda, especially in the wake of the global financial crisis and concerns with processes of financialization. Research into the geographies of money continues to register, but typically appears as marginal to the core concerns of financial geography.

The proposed Special Session explicitly seeks to recover and renew a broader remit for Economic Geography research by foregrounding the geographies of money and payment. We invite papers to explore what Economic Geography can gain from restoring its focus on money and the wider-reaching research agenda this implies.

Potential topics include:

• Relational and network approaches - Earlier elaborations of network approaches to geographies of money and finance gained insights from the social theory of money
• Geopolitics of currencies - Initial concerns with the geopolitics of currencies placed state power and politics at the front and centre of geographies of money and finance
• Central banks and regulation – The policies and regulations of monetary authorities featured strongly in initial accounts of the geographies of money and finance
• Cryptocurrencies – Economic Geographers were previously to the fore in the study of alternative and complementary currencies and the diversity of money
• Digital and mobile payments – Infrastructures, accounts and flows of money were formerly addressed by geographers of money and finance
• Money cultures and the social life of debt – Mundane experiences and everyday enactments of money previously featured in analyses of the geographies of money and finance.