Premium
The Lehman Minibonds crisis and financialisation of investor subjects in Singapore
Author(s) -
Lai Karen P Y
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/area.12040
Subject(s) - financial crisis , subject (documents) , consumption (sociology) , financial market , economics , financial system , business , economic geography , sociology , finance , social science , keynesian economics , library science , computer science
Using the case of the L ehman M inibonds crisis in S ingapore, this paper aims to elucidate processes of financialisation and geographies of investor subjects by investigating the reshaping of retail banking consumers into investor subjects. Instead of painting all investor subjects with a broad brush as part of a generic financialisation process, the Minibonds crisis demonstrates how the consumption of financial products is geographically specific and moderated by local factors, such that financial subjects are incorporated unevenly into global financial markets. Greater geographical sensitivity is therefore needed to tease out how distinctive groupings or ecologies of financial knowledge, practices and subjectivities emerge in different places with uneven connectivity and unequal material outcomes. The paper concludes by discussing the incomplete and contingent nature of subject formation and implications for understanding neoliberal subjectivities.