Beginning with an original historical vision of financialization in human history, this volume then continues with a rich set of contemporary ethnographic case studies from Europe, Asia and Africa. Authors explore the ways in which finance inserts itself into relationships of class and kinship, how it adapts to non-Western religious traditions, and how it reconfigures legal and ecological dimensions of social organization, and urban social relations in general. Central themes include the indebtedness of individuals and households, the impact of digital technologies, the struggle for housing, financial education, and political contestation.

"[This volume] shows how financialization and its social consequences can take rather different forms in different places... a solid foundation for a consideration of the basic nature of financialization and its effects." James G. Carrier, Indiana University Bloomington "This is a very strong collection... the attempt to provide an anthropological understanding of contemporary financialization that goes beyond merely describing how variable it is, is highly welcome." Keir Martin, University of Oslo

Chris Hann is a Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His most recent book is Repatriating Polanyi. Market Society in the Visegrad States (Central European University Press, 2019). Don Kalb is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen, Norway, where he leads the Frontlines of Value project. Recent publications include Anthropologies of Class: Power, Practice, and Inequality, co-edited with James G. Carrier (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Worldwide Mobilizations: Class Struggles and Urban Commoning co-edited with Massimiliano Mollona (Berghahn Books, 2018).