“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra
Paying Attention to Observation Theory: A Conversation on finance, networks and observation theory. Monday May 27th 13:30-16:30 at IOA (Kilen,K4.74), Copenhagen Business School, organized by IOA and the Copenhagen Markets and Valuations Group. Interventions by José Ossandón, David Stark, Elena Esposito and Christian Frankel. Read More
Nuestro entrevistado de la semana pasada, David Stark, recomienda a los lectores de este blog sus “silent lectures” o clases silenciosas. Una serie de presentaciones en power point diseñadas para ser presentadas en silencio y – por ende- útiles en diferentes idiomas y para material docente. Son cuatro temas: Read More
JOURNAL OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT SPECIAL ISSUE CALL FOR PAPERS, Exploring the Performativity of Marketing: Theories, Practices and Devices. Guest Editors: Dr. Katy Mason, Lancaster University Management School, UK; Dr. Hans Kjellberg, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden; Dr. Johan Hagberg, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. All manuscripts submitted must strictly follow the guidelines for the Journal of Marketing Management. The closing date for submission is 29 November 2013 for publication in 2015.
[Como parte de nuestra colaboración inter-redes este post es publicado conjuntamente con Charisma-Network]
The last meeting of our “Copenhagen market group”[i] was devoted to an increasingly influential stream within current economics, namely “market design”. The discussion left me with the somehow perplexing puzzle I am trying to unfold in this post: isn’t this type of economics almost too close to the ‘markets as calculative collective devices’[ii] approach developed by Michel Callon and colleagues so influential among us -non-economists market researchers- in the last years? Read More
Yuval Millo has the position of Professor of Social Studies of Finance and Management Accounting at the School of Management of Leicester University. He is a leading contributor to the emerging field of Social Studies of finance (SSF), which develops a unified analytical framework that includes elements from accounting, financial economics and sociology and analyses dynamics in and around financial markets. SSF pays particular attention to the technological and organizational infrastructure that affect price formation. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, Yuval’s current research includes the emergence of electronic trading in financial exchanges (with Daniel Beunza and Juan-Pablo Pardo-Guerra, LSE), the evolution of accounting standards for testing the impairment of assets (with Andrea Mennicken, LSE) and the rise of the Social Return On Investment methodology (with Emily Barman, Boston University and Matt Hall, LSE). Read More
Image columbia.edu
Timothy Mitchell is a political theorist and historian and currently a professor and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Mitchell’s research has focused on the Middle East, particularly Egypt’s recent history, but his work on subjects such as the making of modernity, the material and technical politics of modern States, and the role of economics and other forms of expert knowledge in governing collective life has influenced scholars from different “areas”, including certainly several of the contributors of this blog. In the interview podcasted in this post, which was carried out in Columbia University last January 24th, we discuss Mitchell’s work in chronological order[i], from Colonising Egypt (1991) to Carbon Democracy (2011). Enjoy! Read More
Uno de los temas favoritos de este blog ha sido la performatividad del conocimiento económico. Desde la formulación original de Michel Callon, estudiar la performatividad implica asumir que la economía como ciencia no solo describe los mercados sino que sería una tecnología clave en el proceso de enmarcar y producir aquellos tipos de encuentros que denominamos como económicos. Por supuesto esto ha generado todo tipo de polémicas. Tal como se discute acá, la elección de Alvin Roth como el último premio Nobel hace replantearse algunas cosas, ya que desde este punto de vista el rol de los economistas sería simplemente “diseñar mercados”. Bueno, como en una novela postmoderna, la historia acaba de ganar un nuevo nivel de autorrereferncia, ya que el mismo Roth ha publicado un post en su blog discutiendo el asunto. En sus palabras:
“Yesterday’s prize to Paul Milgrom for his work in market design (among other things) brings to mind a curious critique (and criticism) of economics in the economic sociology literature, namely that economics is “performative,” in the sense that economic theories influence the real economy to become more like economic theory”
Curious, ¿no?
Del blog de CSI-Performabusiness, el contribuidor de estudiosdelaeconomia Alvaro Piña-Stranger presenta su actual trabajo de investigación.
Chile can be considered as one of the main laboratories of neoliberalism. Many colleagues have developed an interest in this, scrutinizing the social and economic impacts, the political system or the conditions of violence established by the “Chicago Boys” (see for instance the many blog posts at Estudios de la Economía about these issues, for example here). This is also part of PERFORMABUSINESS’s agenda. As part of the PERFOMABUSINESS team, I initiated fieldwork in Chile in three different areas. The first, in collaboration with the ICSO at the Universidad Diego Portales, is a study of the networks of the Chilean inter-organizational business groups. We examine the dynamics and the evolution of these groups both at the level of the organizations and at an individual level. The second empirical site concerns the consulting firm Tironi Asociados. This company is at the heart of the renewal of thinking on post-dictatorial entrepreneurship. It is therefore an interesting place to explore how the culture of business builds and deploys in the Chilean context. Finally, I study business schools, especially at the Adolfo Ibañez and Diego Portales universities. My focus is on the way economic knowledge is taught, disseminated to and received by different student populations. A first part of the fieldwork was conducted in 2012, a second one is in preparation for 2013. I am using an approach which pays particular attention to the performative work carried out by actors. The objective of this research is to feed reflection on what has Chile been turned into and what it is becoming.
On Thursday the 17th January, Gil Eyal has the generosity of meeting us in Columbia University to answer some questions related to his work. Gil is professor of classical theory and sociology of expertise in the department of sociology and he is one of the most prestigious sociologists in the study of economists and neoliberalism. His first research concerns were related to Eastern European State bureaucrats and new social classes. At 2002, he published a landmark paper with Johanna Bockman using the latourian idea of translation to understand neoliberalism and global networks and in 2010 he co-authored an influential review of current sociology of interventions. Most recently he was interested in autism and the role of different experts in its construction and treatment. Here the questions and our dialogue.
