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The currency trader as ‘messiah’ in Jamaican financial discourses – Financialisation in an emerging economy

Bourne, Clea 2011. The currency trader as ‘messiah’ in Jamaican financial discourses – Financialisation in an emerging economy. Presented at: The 7th International Critical Management Conference, Naples, Italy, July 14 - 16, 2011. pp. 1-13.

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Abstract

Over and over, unregulated investment schemes have emerged around the world offering dreams of life-changing riches. Over and over, the hopes of everyday consumers have been dashed as unregulated schemes have gone bust. The pursuit of ‘too-good-to-be-true’ investment return is a part of the financialisation of the human experience; highlighting the increasingly central role investment plays as a ‘technology of the self’ (French and Kneale, 2009). A remarkable discursive struggle involving such investment schemes occurred in the small Caribbean state of Jamaica in the years leading up to the global financial crisis. Between 2006 and 2008, unregulated investment clubs operating as currency traders came to dominate Jamaican financial narratives. The rise of these unregulated investment schemes is indicative of the increasing availability and accessibility of alternative investment opportunities in financial markets (Demir, 2009). What was particularly interesting about these Jamaican investment schemes is that their rapid growth was accompanied by the entangling of financial narratives with cultural narratives. In a society heavily stratified by social class and dominated by the influence of the Christian church, Jamaicans from all walks of life not only accepted financial risk into their homes (Martin, 2002), but into their churches too. The success of these unregulated Jamaican investment clubs became discursively linked with the country’s religious beliefs and long-standing class struggle. This short paper will provide some preliminary insights into the interplay of financial and cultural narratives in trust production in a small state at the global periphery. I will argue that financial institutions produce trust through a series of deliberate practices including alignment with formal trust bodies. Yet, in the case of the Jamaican market, investment clubs rejected the mantle of trust offered by the financial regulator, choosing instead to align with an even more trusted body, the Church, specifically the fast-growing charismatic church. Investment clubs offered such tantalising return that they were eventually able to produce mistrust in the regulator itself. Through the case study, I will offer insights on how trust and mistrust discourses proliferate as flows of power and resistance in financialised systems. The case study will underscore the growing salience of the subject position of the investor (French and Kneale, 2009). It will also highlight the unique twists to global financial discourses as they encounter local contextualities; and as financial subjectivities overlap with other biopolitical domains (French and Kneale, 2009). The paper will further contribute to the under-researched area of financialisation in small states, providing a voice to those on the margins.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type: Completion
Status: Unpublished
Schools: Journalism, Media and Culture
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
H Social Sciences > HG Finance
H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance
Related URLs:
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 30 March 2016
Last Modified: 19 Mar 2016 22:49
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/28693

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