Financialisation, a shorthand for the increasing power of finance over society and the economy, continues to reshape economic geographies in numerous ways and at multiple scales. From housing to health care, from education to innovation, from firms to governments, from labour markets to financial markets, from retail banks to central banks, the process of financialisation has fundamentally altered wealth and power relations. In doing so, it has created significant disruptions, displacements and discontents. Financialisation appears to be deepening social and territorial inequalities, while making contemporary capitalist economies more prone to crises which in turn reinforces the concentration of wealth and power among those with financial assets, i.e. the pandemic has worsened economic inequities and strengthened multiple problematic financial mechanisms. Furthermore, the subjugation of economic process to the financialised logic of short-term financial gain accelerates climate change, reinforces fossil fuel reliance, and deepens climate vulnerabilities around the world.
This session invites papers that will address financialisation and its disruptions, displacements and discontents, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives and from a variety of scales from the local and regional to the trans-territorial and global. We welcome papers that will cover areas less researched including (but not limited to) the financialisation of banks, financialisation and monetary policy, financialisation of the state, financialisation of higher education, financialisation of nature, financialisation of climate governance, financialisation of energy systems, etc., as well as more established areas such as financialisation of housing & real estate, financialisation of households, and corporate financialisation. We particularly welcome contributions that would explore the links between different areas of financialisation, while considering multidimensional and mutually reinforcing disruptions and displacements caused by financialisation.
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