Financialization and Everyday Life Dynamics
Summary
Financialization refers to the growing influence of financial motives, markets, actors and institutions on both macroeconomic structures and individual lives. In contemporary societies, this process extends beyond high- finance arenas to shape quotidian practices, identities and social relations. Everyday life dynamics under financialization encompass how individuals navigate credit, savings, investment and consumption within a context of market-based risk management. Elements such as digital platforms, behavioural insights and regulatory frameworks coalesce to produce variegated financial subjectivities, with people adapting or resisting norms of asset accumulation and debt exposure. This dynamic interplay reveals how structural constraints—welfare retrenchment, income precarity and technological intermediation—influence personal financial decisions and broader patterns of inclusion or exclusion. By tracing both the lived experiences and the institutional mechanisms that mediate financial engagements, research highlights not only the transformation of economic imaginaries but also the emergent strategies through which households and communities make sense of, and contest, market imperatives.
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Financialization and Everyday Life Dynamics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in financialization and everyday life dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Financialization: The process by which financial markets, motives and institutions gain greater influence over economic activities and social relations.
Financial subjectivity: The set of identities and practices individuals adopt in response to financial norms and structures.
Gamification: The integration of game-based elements into non-game contexts to shape user engagement and behaviour.
Intermediation: The role of institutions or platforms in facilitating financial transactions between savers, investors and borrowers.
Counter-conduct: Practices of resistance or adaptation that individuals undertake to negotiate prescriptive financial norms.
References
- Irrational or Rational? Time to Rethink Our Understanding of Financially Responsible Behavior. Economic Geography (2024).
- Playful finance: Gamification and intermediation in FinTech economies. Geoforum (2024).
- ‘Locked in the Rat Race’: Variegated financial subjectivities in the United Kingdom. Environment and Planning A Economy and Space (2021).
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