Financial oikonomization: the financial government and administration of the household

Abstract

This article introduces a new social scientific understanding of the relationship between households and finance. We call it financial oikonomization. Financial oikonomization signals a specific research problem and a distinctive analytical approach to this problem. The problem is how households are financially administered and governed. The approach is pragmatist and descriptive. It is oriented to the how, to the study of the problems and practices of those directly involved with administrating and governing households’ financial flows. On the basis of an extensive review of recent research, we distinguish seven operations of financial oikonomization, seven distinct problems—with their own practices, sites and techniques, but all oriented to the financial administration and government of households. We call these operations: budgeting, juggling, evaluating, attaching, educating, publicizing and infrastructuring.

Credit in Society and in Sociology: On “The Bank and Its Customers” (Bourdieu, Boltanski, Chamboredon, 1963)

“…The issue of evaluation is crucial here, and the authors clearly show that the “evaluating” process [Ossandón et al . 2021] produces substantial socio-economic effects. The idea of evaluating a person bureaucratically before lending them money was not obvious at the time, which is no doubt why the issue of ethics and morality occupies such a prominent place in the report.…”

“…The report addresses issues that are today often grouped together under the rubric of the “financialization of everyday life” and offers illuminating insights on them in two ways: first, by presenting a specific case of the introduction of credit into household finances that predates most common examples in the literature; and, second, by providing a framework focusing on processes of socialization, processes which are not always made explicit in other studies, to understand how these new financial tools are domesticated [Pellandini-Simányi, Hammer and Vargha 2015; Ossandón et al . 2021].…”

Misalignments: House money and inflationary experiences

“…The literature on the dynamics of domestic economies tends to focus on situations of relative stability, or, in the case of the crisis after 2008, on the effects of the turbulences and transformation in labour markets (e.g. Narotzky, 2020, for a global view Ossandón et al, 2022). The long duration of the inflationary processes in Argentina and Brazil and the hyperinflationary bursts of the final decades of the last century gave rise to certain pioneering studies such as those of Kessler and Sigal (1997), O’Dougherty (2002) and Neiburg (2006).…”

“… 15. A combination that Ossandón et al (2022) call budgeting and infrastructuring in the management of domestic finance. …”

L’argent numérique, une nouvelle solution de développement

“…Basée sur une approche multi-scalaire et inspirée d'autres travaux reliant observations empiriques et tendances structurelles globales de la finance (Ossandón et al, 2021), cette contribution offre une analyse à la fois critique de l'argent numérique et attentive à ses ambiguïtés et ambivalences. Pour ce faire, nous mobilisons la notion d'« appropriation », prise dans son double sens de propriété et d'adaptation.…”