Financialization (un)limited: Restless capital, housing and home

Dr Laurence Murphy, Professor of Human Geography, School of Environment, University of Auckland

Financialization (un)limited: Restless capital, housing and home

The burgeoning literature on financialisation affords the potential for ongoing ‘conceptual slippage’ whereby the term is employed in multiple and inconsistent ways. Consequently, Christophers (2015) posits that the term financialization is limited and potentially unhelpful. In this paper I argue that conceiving of financialization as a dynamic and changeable set of processes is conceptually and empirically productive. Drawing upon my own research, which examines issues of housing and home, I explore the possibilities of engaging with the notion of ‘financialization (un)limited’ (Murphy, 2015). Such an engagement takes cognizance of the protean nature of financialization and takes seriously the notions of its limits, especially within local contexts.

“This lecture is co-organised by the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) and the Finance, Economy & Society (FES) research group and sponsored by ERC GEOFIN research ‘Western Banks in Eastern Europe: New Geographies of Financialisation’ (Project No. 683197).”