Call for Papers - Specific Themes

Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Decolonial Struggles in Global Finance

Contexto Internacional Special Issue Guest Editors:

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn (University of Groningen, Netherlands) - m.a.campbell-verduyn@rug.nl
Chris Clarke (Warwick University, UK) - C.D.Clarke@warwick.ac.uk
Daivi Rodima-Taylor (Boston University, USA) - rodima@bu.edu <rodima@bu.edu

Digital technological advancements continue to reshape global finance and its governance. Since the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis, FinTech has become a central topic of concern for those interested in the political, social, and normative dimensions of global finance. Digital innovation in finance impacts how people respond to deeply entrenched systemic racism and sexism, and gendered and class-based inequalities, among others.

To better understand these developments, multiple fields in social science have mobilised the concept of ‘sociotechnical imaginary’ to make sense of the legal, political, sociological and normative dynamics that drive the expansion and contestation of financial technologies (FinTech). A focus on sociotechnical imaginaries has been advanced in particular in Science and Technology (STS)-influenced approaches that allow us to draw attention to both the social and the material lives of finance that shape and contest what is often presented as a seemingly intangible global financial system. Imaginary does not mean an unreal dream, but rather refers to how collective visions of social life and order shape and become embodied within scientific and technological achievements.

In this Special Issue we seek to foster a new wave of scholarship on FinTech that engages both
decolonial politics and STS-inspired approaches to the study of finance. This bridging of literatures and approaches, we suggest, advances understanding of global finance in new directions, ones which crucially speak to broader demands for interdisciplinarity and decoloniality in social science. The Special Issue addresses issues such as digital financial inclusion and the use of Artificial Intelligence in agricultural systems as technical achievements by unpacking the financial imaginaries underpinning their development. Contributions situate digital and digitising infrastructures in longitudinal regulatory frameworks with their non-digital modalities and colonial legacies.

We are seeking contributors for a Special Issue drawing together and expanding on three core themes:

(1) Decolonial politics and finance

●    How can sociotechnical imaginaries in finance be studied through a decolonial lens?
●   How, and to what extent, do sociotechnical imaginaries of FinTech serve to reproduce the
dominance of rich states in the world economy?
●    How are sociotechnical imaginaries engaged and resisted in the Global South?
●    What does a commitment to decolonial scholarship require of scholars of FinTech?

(2) Focus on socio-technical imaginaries in the study of financial technology (fintech)

●    What sociotechnical imaginaries serve to influence the ongoing evolution of FinTech?
●    How do states and regulators interact with sociotechnical imaginaries of FinTech?
●    How do everyday people understand and shape the sociotechnical imaginaries of FinTech?
●    What is the context out of which the sociotechnical imaginaries of FinTech (re)emerge?

(3) The “reshaping” of global finance through digital innovation

●    How, and to what extent, can scholars of FinTech learn from engaging in broader literatures
on decolonial theory and practice?
●    Is FinTech a neo-colonial project?
●    What potential is there in ‘alternative’ sociotechnical imaginaries of FinTech?
●    Where might novel sociotechnical imaginaries of FinTech emerge from?

Authors should submit abstracts up to 300 words until September 30, 2023 to the Contexto Internacional online system (https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/cint-scielo). Selected authors will be invited in mid-October 2023 to submit a complete draft to be discussed in an early December online workshop. Revised papers will then need to be submitted for double blind peer review at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/cint-scielo. See Authors’ Guidelines for further instructions: https://www.scielo.br/revistas/cint/iinstruc.htm.

Please contact the guest editors if you have any questions.

BackPrint