The geographies of social finance: Poverty regulation through the ‘invisible heart’ of markets

Abstract

The global financial and anti-poverty industries are embracing an investment philosophy called social finance, which claims that private profit-making can create positive benefits for society. Attempting to resolve the problems of capitalism from within the system, social finance reframes finance as a force for engendering, rather than disrupting, the public good. This article argues that social finance raises theoretical concerns for geographical research on finance, poverty, and neoliberalizing capitalism. I outline a typology of social finance’s forms and propose a geographical research agenda, arguing that social finance practitioners’ simplistic framings of geography belie many other geographies that constitute what is both an emerging financial marketplace and a logic of poverty regulation.

Intimate Mediations of For‐Profit Conservation Finance: Waste, Improvement, and Accumulation

“…The Credit Suisse conference that opened this paper is aligned with the “impact investing” or “social finance” movement—investments that aim to return not only in money but also in other social and/or ecological benefits (e.g. Mitchell ; Rosenman ). This movement is part of the broader “millennial development” trend noted above but also linked to a rise in “millennial philanthropy” or philanthrocapitalism (Holmes ; Mitchell and Sparke ) where the super‐rich invest in mechanisms targeted at entrenched social and environmental problems.…”

“…The contemporary push to make assets is animated by the possibility for new kinds of accumulation, but we do not agree that it is “first and foremost about capital; generating value that is of use in and to contemporary capitalism”, as Büscher (:33) argues. As Mitchell and Sparke () note about millennial philanthropy (see also Rosenman ), FPCF is also animated by recognition of fundamental problems in capitalism, as well as moral desires to “do good” and perhaps “right wrongs”; it is inspired less by Gordon Gekko than by Muhammad Yunus. Recognising difference in intent does not mean all is well.…”

“…And if so, how are they doing it? We begin to answer these questions through a detailed study along the value chain of what we call “for profit conservation finance” (FPCF), the kind of work called for by geographers studying green and social finance (Christophers ; Rosenman ). In this approach, we draw inspiration from scholars of millennial development such as Roy () and Mitchell and Sparke (), who chronicle the emergence of a rhetorically kinder and gentler development more focused on poverty elimination, not only growth.…”

The Internet of Landlords: Digital Platforms and New Mechanisms of Rentier Capitalism

“…These technologies take on different forms but work together as a constellation that keeps systems of value capture in motion. They include, but are not limited to: digital technologies like the data‐driven, networked, and algorithmic systems that comprise so‐called “smart” things (Sadowski ); legal technologies like intellectual property rights used to construct and control (im)material assets out of cognitive and biological substrate (Birch ; Zeller ); and financial technologies like derivatives, bonds, and risk indexes designed for the purpose of abstracting, valuing, and exchanging anything (Christophers ; Rosenman ). These various types of technologies overlap and intersect; the separations I make here are purely analytical.…”

Using derivative logic to speculate on the future of the social investment market

“…Several authors approach the social investment market through the lens of financialization -see, for example, Dowling (2017) andHarvie (forthcoming). Lake (2015Lake ( , 2016 explores the broader financialization of urban and municipal governance in the United States and the spatial concerns he raises are developed by Rosenman (2017), who highlights the "geographies of social finance". She points particularly to both the physical and social distance between investors and the "targets" of their investment.…”